


Pressure

by SpiderRealm



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Slash (malexmale), doctor!harry, magically-weaken!Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-08-24 14:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8376076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiderRealm/pseuds/SpiderRealm
Summary: Slash/Yaoi: Shane was lost at the hospital. Power out, no heartbeat, he thought Rick was dead until a green eyed doctor told him otherwise. How much help will this doctor be for the group? What could Harry do for the group when he’s so magically weaken?





	1. Day 15 (part 1)

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I do not own _Harry Potter_ or The _Walking Dead_ , both belong to their respective owners. I am not making any profit off of this.
> 
>  **Warning(s):** magically-weaken!Harry; a bit of OOC; Slash (malexmale); Language; Violence; Not a fan of Lori. You have been warned.
> 
>  **Note:** This work is unbeta’d and all editing/proofreading is done by myself. I apologize for any mistakes that were missed and welcome anyone to point out said mistakes if they wished to. Thank you for understanding!

~ Chapter 1 - Day 15 (part 1) ~

Shane stared down at his comatose friend. The room was spinning and he had to grab the edge of the bed to keep himself from collapsing. Too many things were happening and it was all becoming too much. He could hear something happening outside Rick's hospital room and what he heard did not bold well for either of them.

"I need you to wake up, Rick. Now would be the time to wake up!" Shane begged.

He never took his eyes off of Rick, not even when he heard more gunshots and people screaming. It was as if everything outside this small room were happening in some other world that had nothing to do with what was taking place here. But he knew once he stepped outside he would once again see the nightmare this world has become.

Doctors, nurses, and patients alike were being gunned down so coldly by the army squads that had been sent here to protect them. Anyone they suspected of being infected were lined up and killed, and those who weren't ran for their lives, abandoning their patients as they did.

An explosion sounded from outside the hospital that shook the whole building to what felt like its very foundation. Shane dove over Rick to shield him in case the ceiling collapsed. Thankfully, it didn't, and Shane felt a brief moment of relief until the power went out just a few seconds later.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Shane whispered hoarsely.

He looked at the machines and saw that they were off. His eyes shot to Rick and he hurried over to his other side where the wires were in the way to rest his head on Rick's chest over his heart.

Nothing…

Shane felt his throat constrict and the back of his eyes burning. This couldn't be happening. The world was ending, everything was going to hell, he couldn't lose his best friend in all of this, his brother in all but blood.

He stared at Rick's unchanging face and felt the pressure behind his eyes increase until he was doing all he could from bawling like a baby.

More screams sounded outside the room and he heard a woman screamed louder than the others. Lori flashed before his eyes, followed quickly by little Carl and that's what snapped him out.

He moved quickly. He swiped a hand over his eyes and exhaled sharply. He needed to be strong. He needed to think about Carl and Lori, get them away from here. Somewhere where the dead aren't walking, where they'll be safe. He owed that to Rick.

He heard footsteps outside the door and practically dove to the floor to hide as the door opened and an army man scanned the room. He prayed that the man didn't shoot Rick and inwardly sighed in relief when another member of the guy's team told him to leave the room alone.

He poked his head over the bedside once the door had shut and his eyes were once again drawn to Rick's face. He was still asleep.

Shane held in a choked sob and blew out a breath harshly.

He jumped up and looked toward Rick. He stood there for a moment, hoping, praying that he'll wake up this very moment. He didn't.

"I'm sorry, brother. I'll get Lori and Carl to safety, I promise you that." Shane laid a hand on Rick's head and sent him another farewell.

It hurt him to walk away from that bed where his brother was probably already dead without the machines keeping him alive, but he couldn't stay here forever. Rick loved his family more than anything despite the fights he and Lori have been having lately. Rick would never forgive him if he left his wife and child to die, and Shane would never forgive himself.

He opened the door and looked up and down the halls. He heard the groans of the dead down to the right, just around the corner slowly heading this way. To his left, he saw the team that had just passed by shoot more doctors, nurses, and patients. Overkills, wasting bullets when one shot to the head was all it took.

He saw them leave once the group of innocents were dead and held his breath. He tensed and readied himself to make his escape. He was just about to leave the room when he saw it.

One of the rooms on the other side of the hall cracked open. Shane squinted his eyes to get a better look within the dark room the crack revealed and saw a pale face peering through the crack.

Green, like the leaves on the trees in a lush forest during the highest peak of spring, slowly took in the situation in the halls. Green eyes set behind a rectangle framed glasses. Eyes and glasses that were so familiar and unforgettable.

Shane shot a quick glance down the halls to make sure they were alone before looking back at the door.

"Doc!" Shane hissed.

Green eyes snapped toward him and widen in recognition. A relieved smile spread across that pale face and a head of messy black hair popped out from the crack followed by slim shoulders. The door widen, showing that the doctor was crouched just the same as he was.

Shane beckoned the doctor over and felt hope blossom inside of him at the sight of the lithe doctor scurrying across the hall to him.

Doctor Harry James Potter-Black was his name and he was the doctor in charge of Rick's care. It was him who met the ambulance workers at the doors, who followed the stretcher all the way to the surgery room, who took the bullet out of Rick during the surgery, and who oversaw that Rick was comfortable and had everything he needed to make a full recovery. The world had gone to hell and Shane found himself not being able to trust most people nowadays, but if there was one person he trusted Rick's life to, it was Doctor Potter-Black.

"Help him! Help him!" Shane nearly shouted.

He pulled the doctor into the room and pushed him behind him. He closed the door when he heard the shuffling come nearer and turned toward the doctor. The short man was already hovering over Rick with two fingers pressed against his throat and his other arm was held up as he kept count of the seconds that passed on the little watch around his thin wrist.

"I've already...he doesn't…" Shane shuddered in a breath and ran a hand over his eyes. He couldn't bring himself to say it. It was too much.

"He's alive." The doctor told him.

Shane staggered as if he'd been bowled over. The pressure that had settled so heavily over his shoulders seemed to lift greatly at those words, but doubt clouded him just as quickly.

"He…" Shane stalked over to where Doctor Potter-Black stood next to the unconscious Rick. "I checked for a pulse. Laid my head right over his chest and didn't hear a thing."

"You didn't hear anything, because his pulse is weak. It's there, but very weak." Doctor Potter-Black informed him gently.

Shane felt immense relief at that. He felt as if he could laugh with joy. The tears that gathered in his eyes were ones of joy and relief and everything he was feeling at hearing that his brother wasn't dead. He wanted to hug the doctor and shout his joy for the world to hear, but held himself together. It wasn't over yet. He still needed to get to Lori and Carl, and now with Rick and the doc with him.

"Can we move him?" Shane asked.

"I'm hesitant on moving him, his stitches might come loose and it'll be difficult to carry him and protect him and ourselves at the same time." Harry bit his lip. Shane opened his mouth to argue before the doctor continued. "The way he is now, his chances out there isn't good, but his chances here is worse. He'll die if we live him here."

"So how are we going to do this?" Shane asked desperately.

The doctor opened his mouth to answer before turning toward the door, eyes wide in panic and worry. Shane was about to ask what was wrong when he heard it.

Groaning and shuffling sounded from outside the door. The group of walkers that had entered the building and attacked that team of army men had made it around the corner.

Shane crouched low to the ground and saw from the corner of his eye the doctor crouching in front of Rick, his back to the bed as if to protect Rick if the walkers came into the room. Shane quietly moved to be in front of the doctor and his comatose brother, so that if the things came into the room, he'll be able to protect them both.

Shane held his breath and listened closely. The walkers were making their way slowly down the hall. He could hear the inhuman sounds they made and felt his skin crawl. His eyes flickered behind him and he eyed the doctor.

The man was smaller than him and Rick, a head shorter than them and his body was thinner, more lithe than muscled. If things got worse, if those walkers got into the room, Shane doubt the doctor would be able to carry Rick out of the room while Shane distracted them. He reached for his gun and laid his hand on the handle. He should have enough rounds to deal with the group and not let it come down to them all being killed and eaten.

The shuffling and groaning were growing fainter and Shane sighed in relief. He turned toward the doctor and opened his mouth to speak when Doctor Potter-Black silently shushed him.

The green eyed man held up a finger and pointed toward the door.

Shane understood the message and tensed. He stared intently at the door as if he stared hard enough he'll be able to see through it. He didn't hear anything that would tell the doctor that there was something on the other side of that door, but he trusted the man for some reason. Maybe it was his title as doctor, maybe it was because Shane has seen how much the man truly cared about his patients. Whatever it was, Shane trusted his judgement and trusted that the man knew something was out there.

He stayed tense and silent for what felt like hours when a small hand brushed his shoulders. Shane looked behind him and Doctor Potter-Black nodded.

"It's gone?" Shane whispered, not daring to speak louder until he was certain the coast was clear. He glanced between the door and the doctor.

"Yes, something must have caught its attention in one of the rooms." The man told him.

The doctor stood up and turned around to lean over Rick again.

"It was one? Are you sure it's gone?" Shane couldn't help but be sure.

"It was one, and yes, it's gone. You can check if you want, but I'd rather you not open that door until we've got a plan figured out."

Shane nodded and walked over to the other side of Rick's bed, opposite to where the doctor was standing.

He watched as the doctor expertly removed the tubes and wires from Rick's body and held his breath for Rick to react badly to that.

"The power went out a couple of minutes ago and he hasn't reacted negatively to it. His body doesn't seem to need the machines anymore, which is a miracle in itself. I can't say he'll stay like this forever, but…"

"Hopefully, it'll be long enough to get him and us out of here safely." Shane finished.

"Exactly."

Doctor Potter-Black took a step back once he was done and stared at Shane with thoughtful eyes. Something was swimming in those green eyes of his, something that made Shane stand up straighter.

"How are we going to get him out?" Doctor Potter-Black asked.

Shane shuffled from one foot to the other in thought.

"I'm not sure. We can't carry him between us, one of us need to hold the gun and protect the other and Rick. I refuse to make us both vulnerable trying to carry Rick out, but I also refuse to leave my brother behind."

"And we can't use the hospital bed. It's too big and it'll make too much noise. The hospital is overrunned by those things, we need to be as quiet as possible." Doctor Potter-Black bit his lip, his brows drawn low.

Shane ran a frustrated hand through his hair and paced the length of the small room.

"I'm not leaving him here!" Shane hissed.

"Neither am I." Doctor Potter-Black bit his lip harshly, nearly drawing blood, before turning his head to stare deeply at Shane.

He felt a jolt go through him at the look. Those green eyes were dark in worry, shock, and consideration, but mostly determination and a large amount of wariness. It was that last emotion that caught Shane's attention and he figured it was what was swimming in his eyes moments ago.

"You've got a plan?"

"Yes, but you have to promise me a couple of things." The good doctor said.

"Anything. My blood, my life, anything if it means getting my brother out of here alive." Shane said seriously.

He stared back at the doctor and Doctor Potter-Black searched his eyes. It was as if those green eyes were looking right into his soul and the doctor must have saw something he could trust for he nodded and closed his eyes.

"You can't say anything of what you see to anyone else. No matter how much you trust that person, you can't tell them what I'm about to show you. Please."

"I promise. I won't tell another soul." Shane promised. The man was weirding him out, but the air around them was heavy with tension, as if something big was about to happen. Shane swallowed heavily. "I promise."

The doctor nodded and reached into the pockets of his dirtied white coat. He pulled out a slender stick and looked at Shane. Shane looked at the stick and then to the doctor's face.

"I'll explain everything later."

The doctor waved the stick around over Rick's comatosed body. Shane felt anger build up inside of him. The world was ending, Lori and Carl were at their house packing up to leave waiting for him to bring Rick back, and the doctor had gone insane.

He should've seen this coming. The doctor was too kind. He went out of his way to make others happy. He talked to Carl as if he were an adult, yet expertly hid some of the more gruesome truth without the boy noticing. He comforted Lori, he made Shane feel hope that his best friend won't be in a coma for long. The doctor was too kind for this world to survive with his mental health fully intact.

Shane stepped over to the doctor and was about to shake him by the shoulders when Rick lifted from the bed.

"What in the…" Shane stared wide eyed as Rick's body started to raise from the bed.

His brother hovered an inch or two above the bed, his body as straight as a board.

Shane looked toward the doctor with about a thousand questions in his head, each trying to come out all at once. His brain was trying to deny what he was seeing, but logic was making it clear what the doctor was doing.

"I promise, I'll explain later, but we have to go now. I can sense another group coming near." Doctor Potter-Black whispered.

Shane swallowed heavily and nodded. His questions could wait.

He gripped his gun and checked his magazine. He saw he had plenty of bullets left and clipped the magazine back into its slot. He glanced around the room and headed for the closet to grab the bag full of clothes and items Rick had on him when he was brought in. He shouldered the bag and turned toward the doctor.

"Okay. Let's go." Shane said.

He walked over to the door and looked back at the doctor questioningly.

"They're in another hall, but they're heading this way. We'd be clear for now, go." Doctor Potter-Black told him.

Shane reached over to turn the handle and hesitated for just a moment. He didn't know what the doctor was or how he was doing what he did or how he knew where the walkers were, but if it meant getting Rick out of here…

Shane pulled the door open and crept out the room with the doctor close behind. A quick glance showed him Rick's body floating unnaturally in the air in front of the doctor. He turned back forward and scanned the hall for anything moving.

"Clear." The doctor whispered.

"I've got a car out back. Hopefully, no one took it."

They snuck down the halls, turning and stopping each time the doctor sensed a group of either the dead or army men walking near.

There was an air around the doctor that Shane had never noticed before. He was kind and gentle and caring, and he was smaller than most men. You'd never think that someone like him would literally have something up his sleeve. Shane didn't know what was happening or how it was happening, all he knew was that this man was blowing some cover he had just to help him get Rick out of here and Shane would never forget this.

Doctor Potter-Black guided them through halls and down stairs, since the elevators weren't working, sensing where the walkers were and taking them down a path that would help them avoid any confrontation, but the hospital was overrunned by the dead and no path was truly safe.

A sheen of sweat was forming around the doctor's brow and he was breathing a bit breathlessly. The man was fit. Shane remembered the stories the man told Carl of how he would run four miles before coming to work and two miles after getting off his shift. He wasn't strong enough to carry a fully grown man, but he shouldn't be this breathless from just walking. Whatever the man was doing to keep Rick in the air was taking a toll on him and Shane wondered if sensing where the walkers were was also putting more strain on him.

Shane wanted to ask, wanted them to stop and form another plan of action, but he never got the chance.

"Shit." The doctor hissed behind him.

Shane saw exactly what the doctor was cursing about.

Three walkers were coming out of the room ahead of them. They were snapping their jaws and looking around with dead, milky white eyes. There were two men and a woman. One of the men was wearing scrubs while the other was wearing a normal T-shirt and torn, bloodied jeans. The woman was wearing a bloodied hospital gown and Shane could see that the other two had been feasting on her.

Shane cursed silently and crouched low to the ground, gesturing for the doctor to get down too, but it was too late. One of the walkers looked in their direction and snarled inhumanely.

It started stumbling quickly toward them and the other two noticed what caught its attention and quickly followed.

Three walkers were heading toward them.

"Dammit! What happened!" Shane cursed and readied his gun at the closest walker.

"They slipped past my senses. I'm sorry!" Doctor Potter-Black cried out.

The exhaustion in his voice helped in lowering Shane's anger over the walkers catching them by surprise. He breathed to further calm himself and his grip around his gun tightened before his arms relaxed around his elbows. The doctor positioned his body and Rick's so that he was between the walkers and his patient.

"It's just three, and I've got plenty of bullets." Shane reassured him and aimed his gun at the walker's head.

"You can't!" Doctor Potter-Black suddenly hissed. "There are six of them just around the corner in the other hall! They'll hear the gunshots."

Shane cursed and used the butt of his gun to bash the walker in the head instead of shooting when the opportunity to shoot it had passed and it got too close. It fell to the ground with a ragged snarl and Shane pulled out a knife to end its unnatural existence.

The moment he stood up, the two walkers were on him. One grabbed at his arm and tried pulling the appendage to its mouth full of broken, bloodied teeth. The other one wrapped its peeling arms around his shoulders and bent its head to go for his exposed neck.

"Dammit!" Shane cursed and struggled against them. Their grips were tight and he felt panic grow inside him as the sounds of their jaws snapping and clicking rung loud in his ears. Lori and Carl flashed before his eyes again; Rick and the doctor; it was funny how they were going to be the last thoughts in his mind.

"Don't move!" Doctor Potter-Black shouted and Shane immediately stilled.

The walkers went in for the bites and Shane was about to resume his struggling when a blast of red light shot past his shoulder and into the head of the walker around his shoulders. A small, pen sized hole oozed dead, dark red blood and the walker dropped to the ground. A second stream of red light went over his other shoulder and the walker gripping his arm met with the same fate.

Shane breathed heavily and allowed his arms to fall to his side in limp relief.

"That was amazing, very handy." Shane chuckled breathlessly.

A thud behind him had Shane spinning around and aiming his gun, a shout on the tip of his tongue as the worst case scenario flashed before his eyes for a split second.

Doctor Potter-Black was on one knee, panting heavily with his eyes screwed shut in exhaustion. Rick's body was still afloat in the air, but Shane could see that Rick was now bobbing when before he was perfectly still.

"Hey, hey." Shane crouched next to the doctor and placed his hands on his shoulders. "We're almost there, can you hold on for a bit longer? We're almost there."

"Yeah, I can. Just...give me a moment." Doctor Potter-Black smiled weakly and shuffled back to lean his back against the wall. He gently lowered Rick and maneuvered him so that the comatose man was resting against his body.

Shane wiped the sweat from above his lips and gripped his gun tight. He stood up and stood in front of the doctor and his unconscious brother. He took up guard and allowed the doctor to rest for a moment. A thought floated in his head and he looked behind him.

"Stop sensing for those walkers while you rest. I can see it's taking some kind of toll on you." Shane told him.

The doctor looked up at him with tired, green eyes and nodded. The shine in those eyes dimmed and Shane realized with a jolt that they had been brighter than usual ever since they left Rick's hospital room. He hadn't noticed they had been practically glowing, he had been too focused on scanning their surroundings and getting them out of this damn hospital.

Doctor Potter-Black closed his eyes and sagged against the wall tiredly.

"Why are you so tired?" Shane eventually asked after a minute or two. "I don't mean to be rude, but you got exhausted real fast."

He heard a humourless huff of laughter and turned in time to see the bitter smile spreading across the doctor's lips before it disappeared.

"Something happened before I came to America. Used to be able to keep it up for hours, even when unconscious, but…"

Shane could see the agony in the doctor's green eyes, the betrayal shining in those broken eyes. He swallowed and nodded. He didn't need to hear anymore to tell that someone had betrayed the doctor's trust and that the results had been horrific. If the doctor didn't want to talk about it, Shane wasn't going to force it out of him.

"I'm ready." Doctor Potter-Black said after five more minutes of resting. "We've got to go before those other things come."

"Are they heading this way?" Shane asked as the doctor waved his stick around and made Rick rise again.

"No, they're distracted by...something...our path is clear, how far is your car from the exit door?" Doctor Potter-Black pushed himself up and asked.

Shane didn't need to know what had distracted those walkers and swallowed down the urge to go help the poor soul. It was probably too late to save them and from the look in the doctor's eyes, he was right. Shane hardened his heart and used this as an opportunity to get them out of here.

"Not that far, just in the parking lot, a couple feet from the door." Shane told them and, after receiving a nod from the doctor, moved them along.

They started passing by more and more dead bodies with multiple bullet wounds. Shane wondered if they had been alive when they were gunned down so brutally. He wasn't much for praying, but he sent a silent one for them anyways; no one deserved to be gunned down that way.

They were nearing a door with an exit sign above it. Shane could feel relief start to take over, but he pushed it down. It was too early to celebrate.

Shane shouldered the door open and held it open with his back for Doctor Potter-Black to walk through with Rick's body floating in front of him.

The parking lot was empty of cars save for the ones that were scrapped by thugs who took this epidemic as the chance to strip parked cars of their valuables. But the space that the lack of cars left were taken by the piles of bodies covered by white sheets, the dead that the army men had managed to put down. The white sheets reminded Shane how things were at the beginning, when people respected the dead who had came back to life and gave them proper burials. That sympathy had quickly dissolved when the walking dead started mindlessly attacking the living monstrously. Now when the dead were put down, they were left where they were and it was rare to see anyone going out of their way to bury or place a sheet over strangers.

Amongst the bodies and stripped cars, Shane saw his car and sighed in relief when he saw that no one had touched it. He could see that one of his back windows had been smashed and knew that the duffel bag of clothes he had in there had likely been stolen, but thankfully he had the sense to leave the bag of guns with Lori.

"Just a few more feets and we're out of here. Do you sense any walkers nearby?"

Doctor Potter-Black quirked an eyebrow at the name Shane gave the undead before squinting his glowing, green eyes.

"There are a couple nearby. They're spaced out and are quite far away from where we need to go. If we're quiet, we can get past them without them noticing us." Doctor Potter-Black said lowly.

Shane nodded and scanned the parking lot and could see one walking on the other side of the fence, but no more. The others the doctor had sensed must be under the covers, the ones who put them down having not done the job correctly.

"All right. Let's go." Shane said.

They trekked silently across the parking lot. Shane counted his lucky stars that they didn't meet with any problems along the way and he hurriedly held the door open for the doctor to levitate Rick into the back seat before he canceled whatever he did and allowed Rick to drop gently into the seat.

"I need to stay in the back with him to hold him still during the ride; the movement of the car will cause those stitches to loosen and his wound has not healed enough to stay close without them." Doctor Potter-Black reminded him about the stitches.

Shane nodded and hurried over to the driver's side of the car. He opened the door and jumped in. He shut the door a little too loudly, but he wasn't too worried as he put the keys in the ignition and started the car.

"You ready?" He turned and watched as the doctor laid Rick's head in his lap and used his arm to hold his shoulders down firmly, yet gently to not put pressure on the stitches.

"Ready." Doctor Potter-Black said before his eyes widened. "Drive! Drive!" He shouted.

The doctor was leaning as far as he could away from the window and Shane heard snarling and growling. It was with a jolt that he realized the doctor was sitting next to the broken window and a rotting arm tried to reach through and grab for the doctor. One of the walkers underneath the sheets must have gotten up and made its way over unnoticed.

Shane placed the car in reverse and stomped his foot on the pedal and heard the wheels screeching as he backed the car out and away from the walker that had tried to get the doctor.

It snarled and Shane watched as it tried to run after them. He changed the gears to drive and drove past the walker and the bodies and through the gates. The noise the tires had made drew other walkers toward them, but they were long gone by the time the walkers made it to the parking lot.

"Oh lord, we did it." Shane said numbly.

He couldn't believe that they made it. When the power had went out and he tried to listen for a heartbeat, he had lost all hope of getting his brother out of there. There had been no way he could bring Rick's body to Lori. Shane had felt like puking and crying and shouting when he thought he would have to leave Rick behind. But then the doctor had appeared and Shane felt as if he could laugh and won't stop for days at the relief he felt. His brother was alive and it was all thanks to the doctor.

"Thank you, doctor. I couldn't have done it without you. If it hadn't been for you, I would have left the hospital without knowing my brother was alive." And it was that thought that truly made Shane shiver. If the doctor hadn't been there, he would have continued to believe Rick was dead and would have left his brother to whatever fate had in store of him. It was something he didn't want to think about.

"Words cannot express how thankful I am. I don't know how I can repay you for everything you've done, but know that I will pay you back. Whether it be money or my soul, whatever you want, you can have." Shane swore.

Rick was everything to Shane. They had known each other for as long as he could remember. Living in this world without Rick was like living in a shadowed world where no light will ever shine. He gripped the steering wheel tightly and laughed loudly at the relief he was feeling. He whooped and banged a hand on the wheel and grinned widely at the exhausted looking doctor through the rearview mirror and felt his grin widen at the tired smile on the doc's face.

"You're welcome. I was going to head into Rick's room after you had left, but you noticed me and I am grateful that you did. It has been a while since I've used magic, I didn't know how weak I'll get in only a short amount of time." Doctor Potter-Black said softly.

"Magic? Is that what you call it?" Shane asked curiously, glancing at the doctor through the rearview mirror.

"Yes. There is a whole world of people who can use magic, communities hidden all over the world. I came from that world, before…" The doctor hesitated once again and Shane frowned.

He hadn't met the people who had hurt the doctor and he was already hating them for how deeply they've damaged the kind-hearted man.

"It's fine. You don't have to talk about it." Shane said gruffly, awkward when it came to stuff like this.

The doctor smiled in thanks. He looked down at Rick and ran a hand through the man's sweaty hair.

"I'll take care of him. I feel like I've failed everyone at the hospital, but I won't let you or Lori or Carl down. I'll take care of him and continue to do so well after he's woken up." The doctor whispered.

"I trust you will. You've been a hell of a doctor, did more for Rick then anyone has ever done. Out of anyone, I trust Rick's care in your hands." Shane said passionately.

He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the embarrassed blush coating the man's usually pale cheeks. He smirked, feeling oddly pleased at making the man blush.

"So, doctor…"

"Please, call me Harry." Harry interrupted.

Shane nodded and quirked a smile.

"So, Harry. Anything you need from your house?" Shane asked.

Harry shook his head and tapped the choker around his neck with his free hand. Shane looked closing into the rearview mirror and saw on the choker a small trunk-shaped amulet connected to the front.

"When the whole thing started, the hospitals were informed first. We were forced to keep our silence, to not cause any panic amongst the civilians. When infected people started coming in, it was something I've never seen before and I knew that the government would not be able to find a cure in time, so I shrunk everything I owned and collected things I knew I'd need and placed them inside this trunk. I've been caring it around since my first infected patient." He explained.

"Shrinking things, making people hover, shooting red lights that acts like a gun with a silencer. Very impressive." Shane really was impressed and was starting to feel giddy. He could remember as a kid loving wizards and the spells they could do. He was a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings books and the movies that followed. And now there was a real, breathing wizard sitting in the back of his car.

"Yeah, small things I'm still able to do. I'm lucky I can still use magic." Harry whispered, his eyes staring down at Rick's sleep slack face.

Shane gripped the steering wheel tightly. He wanted to tell Harry that he'll help him get his magic back, that he'll hunt down the people who took his magic from him, but he bit his tongue and held the words in. There was no way he could find the people who had hurt Harry and it was impossible for him to get the man's magic back, because he had no idea how it was taken from him.

He glanced at the doctor again and felt something inside him grow a bit more. He realized what was happening, same thing that had happened with Rick and with Lori and with little Carl. He was starting to feel protective of Harry. He wanted to keep the man safe, stop anything from harming him. Soon, he would want to take his pains away, just like he did with Rick. Shane accepted these feelings and what was going to come. He wasn't going to fight these feelings. The doctor was special, Harry was special and it was a friendship Shane will readily accept.

He'll do what he can to keep Harry protected along with Rick, Carl, and Lori. The world was ending and he'd be damned if he lost the most precious people in his life. He'd do anything for them, as long as it meant keeping them well and alive, he'd do anything.

~ End ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Note:** This idea has been running through my head for the longest, so I finally got around to writing it while re-watching the show. I hoped you all enjoyed the first chapter!
> 
> I'm going to tell you all now, updates will be very slow. With work, I've barely got any free time and I'll try to spend that time writing chapters, but there are so many things I also want to do, so the updates will be slow and I see no sense in rushing and pushing out poor quality chapters. So, updates will be slow and I hope you all can understand!
> 
>  _Edited and revised 10/12/2017_ \- Hello. I've gotten the creative juices for this story again and figured that going through the previous chapters and fixing what I can will help me in writing the next chapter. Not much was changed in this chapter except for some thoughts being expanded and filled out more, plus some paragraphs being fleshed out. It helps to go through the chapters and take note of what I've already written down, plus I'm rewatching the show from the start, so it's really helping me get into the mood of things.
> 
> Thank you all for reading! If you prefer to read over on AO3, I'm under the same name SpiderRealm.
> 
> Until the next chapter, cya!
> 
> ~ Spider


	2. Day 15 (part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or The Walking Dead, both belong to their respective owners. I am not making any profit off of this.
> 
>  **Warning(s):** magically-weaken!Harry; a bit of OOC; Slash (malexmale); Language; Violence; Not a fan of Lori. You have been warned.
> 
>  
> 
>  **Note:** This work is unbeta’d and all editing/proofreading is done by myself. I apologize for any mistakes that were missed and welcome anyone to point out said mistakes if they wished to. Thank you for understanding!

~ Chapter 2 - Day 15 (part 2) ~

“Okay, what exactly do you have in that trunk of yours?” Shane turned around in his seat to stare back at Harry.

They were parked a couple of blocks from Lori’s house where the woman and her son were waiting for him to bring Rick back to them. As much as he wanted to get to them as soon as possible before anything happened to them, Shane remembered the promise he had made to Harry in that hospital room. Shane was not the type of man to break his promises, especially to someone who broke his cover to help him save his brother in all but blood. He couldn’t very well ask the other man what he had in his trunk in front of Lori and Carl if he meant to keep his promise.

“Every medical tool and supplies that I own, plus a couple I took from the hospital when we started receiving more patients that had...whatever this is....”

“Smart.” Shane grinned.

Harry grinned back with that familiar, crooked smile of his, albeit a bit weaker than the bright smile Shane was so used to.

“I figured stuff like this is going to be one of the most important things in this new world. I wanted to save up on as many as possible before it was all gone.” Harry explained.

Shane nodded and waved for him to continue. Harry looked down in thought, idly running a hand over Rick’s hair. Shane smiled at the tender motions. He was glad that his brother was in the hands of a doctor who actually cared about his patients and did not just see them as his next paycheck. That was what made Harry different from the other doctors Shane had had to deal with during his career and he thanked every god and goddess out there that the doctor had been in that room across the hall from Rick’s room.

“I’ve got a sleeping bag, canned food, a tent, clothes, toiletries, books…”

“Books?” Shane raised a brow. “I don’t see how books will be important?”

“Medical journals,” Harry huffed. “Also some works that I won’t mind reading over and over again, and some I hadn’t read yet. I’m not sure if we are ever going to get a moments of peace, but I don’t want to be bored out of my mind if we do.”

“Okay,” Shane shrugged.

Books weren’t really his thing, not since he became a cop and was too busy to pick up a book, but he wasn’t going to reprimand the doctor for packing them with him. If those rare moments of peace were going to bore him out of his mind, he might take a book or two for himself; maybe the doctor had some fantasy books, he wouldn’t mind reliving his childhood by reading the Lord of the Rings again.

Harry hummed and tilted his head in thought.

“And I’ve brought some stuff from my world.” He said.

“Really?” Shane perked up. “What kind of stuff?”

Harry laughed at the wonder and excitement on his face. It was a look he hadn’t seen in a long while, a look that had once annoyed the heck out of him during his school years, but now he felt nothing but amusement at the look. It was much better than the hateful gazes he had once received.

“Potions and more books, but on spells and wards and charms, stuff that falls under protection and some that I think will help in defending ourselves.” Harry told him.

“Potions, like stuff that heals and shit?” Shane asked.

Harry nodded before biting his lips.

“They are mainly medical potions, but the potions are too strong for muggles, people without magic,” Harry explained at the confused and almost offended look on Shane’s face. “Muggles don’t have any magic in their bodies. The ingredients used in making the potions bring out magical properties that can speed up healing and flush out infections, too strong for muggles to handle.”

“So if we were to take them?” Shane asked warily.

“It’ll cause your bodies to go into shock. I’ve seen someone who used to be my friend use the potions on a muggle, the seizures were terrible and it was hours before their body finally succumbed to the overload.”

“You’ve got some that were made for muggles in mind?” Shane asked hopefully.

“No. The Healers and Potion Masters of my world did not see it fit to make potions that muggles could handle. They believed it was waste of time.” Harry scowled before smiling sadly. “There was one Potion Master who worked hard on making some that would work on Muggles, but his potions were repeatedly rejected by the Ministry and his notes on how to brew them were lost when someone broke into his vault and destroyed everything inside.”

“Damn.” Shane cursed. He was hearing only a small side of the doctor’s old world and he was not liking what he was hearing. It sounded like the world of magic was not much different than his own world. “What about watering the stuff down, won’t that make it weak enough for us to use?”

“Watering down potions is not recommended, the bacteria and anything else in the water could mix badly with the ingredients and cause disastrous results.” Harry said immediately before pausing and then biting his bottom lip again. “I’ve been experimenting with potions to make them more suitable for Muggles ever since I became a muggle doctor, but they’re far from ready to be used on muggles.”

Shane sighed and nodded. “That sucks. Hopefully, we won’t need those potions, and if we do, it’ll be after those potions are safe for us.”

“I can only hope the same.” Harry nodded.

“Now, if we want to keep your secret a secret, we’re gonna have to open that trunk and take some things out. We can’t have you showing up with nothing and then suddenly having stuff.” Shane got down to the main reason why he stopped the car.

“Right. Help me move him so I can get out the car.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Shane shook his head and threw the doctor a look. “Do you know how dangerous getting out this car is? Look around us!”

Shane pointed toward one of the houses where there was obviously a Walker leaning against the side of the house, its jaws snapping open and close as those milky white, dead eyes stared into nothing. Movement to their left showed another Walker shuffling down the sidewalk on the other side of the road.

“There is no way I’m letting you out of this car.” Shane shook his head.

“The trunk is too big to fit in the car. I need to get out in order to unshrink it and open it.”

“Well, give it to me. I’ll get out and take out whatever you need.” Shane reached out and beckoned Harry to hand over the tiny trunk.

He was not going to let the doctor out of this car. Not only was the doctor important, he was a friend. After everything the doctor has done for them, Shane was not going to risk the doctor’s life, not if he could help it. But that wasn’t the only reason.

Out of the two of them, Harry was the one who needed to stay by Rick’s side. Shane wouldn’t know what to do if Rick started having seizures or something worse while Harry was out of the car and the seconds that would take for Harry to get back into the car, because Shane had no doubt that the doctor would practically teleport into the car to get to Rick, could mean life or death for Rick; and he would prefer to go out with Harry to cover his back, but leaving Rick inside of the car by himself was not an option. So there was only one option.

Shane flexed his fingers for Harry to hurry, but the doctor shook his head and instead reached a hand up to gently wrap around the shrunken trunk about his neck.

“It needs magic to open it and magic to shift through the compartments. I know it’s dangerous out there and I’ll be as quick as possible. I’ll only take out my tent, a suitcase filled with clothes, a duffel bag filled with canned food, and two backpacks that has my medical supplies.”

Harry leaned forward, being mindful of Rick’s head in his lap, and patted Shane on the shoulder.

“I’ll be quick and extremely careful. I won’t make too much noise.” Harry promised.

Shane cursed and ran a frustrated hand through his mass of curly hair. He tugged harshly and eventually nodded.

“Be quick and quiet. I’ll be watching you out the window.” Shane said sternly.

Harry nodded with a pleased smile and together they repositioned Rick so that there wasn’t any pressure on his stitches, and also so that Harry could get out through the car’s right door so that he wouldn’t be close to that Walker on the other side of the road.

Harry eased open the car door and glanced to his side to see Shane in the passenger’s seat, the window down, and his gun loaded with the tip pointed out the window. The cop nodded and Harry returned the gesture before cautiously stepping out of the car.

He didn’t try getting onto the sidewalk. He stayed on the grass near the curb and unhooked the trunk from his choker and also undid the sticking charm he had placed, for when someone other than him tried to get the trunk off.

He placed the trunk on the ground in front of him and quickly took out his wand. He tapped the trunk and heard Shane’s sharp intake of breath as the trunk grew before his eyes. He smiled and glanced around him as the trunk grew back to its original size, which was pretty large.

The Walker leaning against the side of the house was unaware of his presence and Harry used his magic to briefly sense for that other Walker and saw in his mind’s eye that it was down the street and about to leave the neighborhood.

The ability to sense things around him had taken him awhile to get used to. It was a bit like echolocation and it was something only he knew how to do, something he had spent years perfecting. He concentrated his magic to one point inside of him and used the force to expel the magic outside his body in all directions. Whatever his magic touched, he saw within his mind. It was a colorless image, but it was so detailed that Harry could see exactly what was around him in a fifty-meter radius.

It was taxing to use on his damaged magical core, so he often went months without using this ability before the world went to hell. Harry is grateful that he hadn’t used his magic in nearly a year, the amount of magic that had been slowly building up within his core was now put to good use in scanning the areas with no difficulty. He just wonder how many times he can do this without draining his core. The levitation charm he used on Rick did not help, but he would gladly do it again if it meant helping those he was starting to care about.

The trunk had finally regained its original size and Harry looked down at the various locks on the front underneath the lid. He chose the fourth going from the left and gently slid his wand into the keyhole. He sent a small pulse of his magic into the keyhole and the locking mechanism easily undid itself as it recognized his magical signature. The lid popped open soundlessly and Harry peered inside to see shrunken versions of camping supplies in a miniature shop’s main room.

He reached in and pulled out the dark red bag containing his tent, and pulled out another bag, this one a bright, fiery red that he knew contained his toiletries. He sat those two next to him and closed the lid. The lock clicked close on its own and Harry chose the one right next to it, the fifth one which contained bags of food. He chose the light blue bag containing his canned food. He closed the lid and chose the lock at the far end, on the right, the seventh lock which contained his medical supplies.

He bit his lip as he looked over the miniature sized room designed to look like a doctor’s office and the bags that neatly littered the small room. He picked up a soft red bag and an equally soft blue bag which contained the simple medical necessities; gauze, bandages, disinfectant wipes, etcetera. All of that were in the light blue bag. The soft red bag contained more serious supplies; medicine, needles and string for stitching, etcetera. He bit his lips as he eyed his bright yellow bag that contained his more magical side of medical supplies before shaking his head. He had no use for potions for the moment. It’ll only be a waste of space inside the boot of the car.

He placed those with the others and closed the lid gently. He sent out a pulse of magic and saw that there were no Walkers nearby, except for the one still leaning against the house. This didn’t cause him to relax. Anything could happen within a split second and relaxing his guard would only cause him or others around him to die. He had learned that painfully after the war.

Harry clenched his eyes shut as images and a voice screaming out for him assaulted his mind and he bowed over his trunk and tried to get himself under control. He bit his lips harshly to keep his whimpers in and tasted a metallic tang on the tip of his tongue.

“Hey, what are you doing? You all right?” Shane whispered roughly and that was what Harry needed to pull himself together. They couldn’t stay here forever and wait for him to get over his sudden trip down memory lane.

“I’m fine. Let’s go.” Harry murmured, still shaking as the remnant of that voice echoed through his mind.

He quickly tapped the trunk with his wand and whispered the shrinking spell. The trunk shrunk under his eyes and Harry felt tense as he watched. The process only took seconds to do, but out in the open where there were dangers everywhere, those seconds felt like hours to him. He felt a small tug on his core and knew that he would need to be careful on how many times he shrunk his trunk. Unshrinking didn’t take much magic, but forcing the object down to a smaller size puts a slight strain on his core. He’d need to be careful to avoid draining himself.

Once the trunk was shrunken, Harry picked it up and placed it on the front of his choker where he clipped it back on and also redid the sticking charm. He gathered up the bags and signaled for Shane to open the boot. He cautiously walked to the boot and lifted the lid and went through carefully unshrinking his bags. He closed the boot and quickly got into the car once he was done.

“Done?” Shane asked. The man shuffled back behind the wheel and started the car.

“I’m done. Let’s go get Lori and Carl.” Harry smiled and kept an eye on Rick during the ride to the comatose man’s house.

As they drove, Harry could see the dead walking and every single house they passed had their windows broken and doors kicked in. He frowned at the sight and sighed. The world was ending and people decided it was the perfect opportunity to rob others, of all the things to put your focus onto. He’s seen people on the news walking out of stores with televisions and other electronics when the public started realizing something was happening and he couldn’t help but wonder what on earth would they need those for and if those people were regretting wasting their time on useless stuff.

They drove past everything, never once stopping. Harry didn’t think Shane would stop to help someone in need, too focused on getting Rick to his family and while Harry frowned heavily at the thought of leaving someone to their unfortunate fate, he did not want to risk Rick’s health and safety.

So they drove on and soon Harry started noticing houses in somewhat prime conditions. It gave him hope that Lori and Carl were safe in their home.

“Almost there.” Shane said.

Shane parked the car outside a blue and white, medium sized house that Harry assumed was their destination. He eyed the windows and door and was pleased to see that they were still intact. Said door swung open and a familiar brunette stood in the doorway, a pistol clasped tightly in her hands.

“Goddammit.” Shane cursed and stepped out of the car after shutting it off.

Harry watched from inside the car as an argument took place between the two. Harry knew what made Shane so upset and he had to side with the man on it. The sound of the car or whatever it was that had caught Lori’s attention could’ve been anyone. Opening the door like that could have put her and Carl at risk.

Lori gave it her all in the argument before Shane said something that gave her pause. She looked around Shane and noticed Harry in the car. She smiled weakly at him before her gaze moved past him and landed on Rick. Harry can only guess that from her vantage point that she only see Rick’s bare legs, but apparently that was enough for her. Her eyes widen and she half sobbed as she ran toward the car.

“Oh my god, Rick!” She cried and nearly tried crawling through the broken window in her attempt to reach her husband.

“Careful of the glass, Mrs. Grimes. Let me open the door.” Harry said gently.

She nodded and took a step back to let Harry open the door after he carefully removed Rick’s head and upper body from his lap. He stumbled while getting out of the car as Lori shoved him aside in her rush to get to her husband.

“Is he alive? Is he all right?” Lori asked frantically.

Harry peered inside and saw her hands fly over her husband’s head, pushing his hair back from his face and running over his cheeks almost as if she couldn’t decide where she wanted to place them.

“He’s alive, but barely. He’s stable enough to move him around, but we need to quickly find him a better place to rest.”

“You’re right. The back of a car isn’t an ideal place for my husband to fully recover.” And with that, she tried to move Rick.

Harry nearly shouted as the protective instincts he had for each of his patients flared through him. “Don’t move him.”

“Then how are we going to get him inside?” Lori snapped, still angry over her fight with Shane and ready to unleash her frustrations on anyone.

“We’re not going to move him. Shane doesn’t want us to stay here for too long.” Harry told her.

“Doesn’t want…” Lori smiled at him as if he were dim. “Where are we going to go?”

Harry blinked. Surely Shane had told her of his plans? There was no way she would agree to pack if she didn’t know the plans.

“To the refugee center in Atlanta. The place will be well-protected and will hopefully have everything we need.”

“I can’t take my husband and son to a place that will ‘hopefully’ have what we need.” Lori argued.

Harry sighed and felt a sort of fondness. The woman liked to argue, to cover all the points over everything to make absolutely sure that things will go smoothly. Almost how Hermione used to be before the final battle of the war. But right now they couldn’t plan down to the exact detail. He didn’t know if the refugee center was safe or not, but what other option did they have?

“It’s our only option. I’ve seen the houses we passed on the way here from the hospital. They’ve been broken into and who knows what happened to the people who were still inside them. It’ll be safer for us to leave before whoever are breaking into these houses come here.”

Lori looked conflicted with the answer before nodding in understanding.

“Dad?” A boy’s voice shouted out hesitantly.

“He’s here, Carl. He’s here!” Lori called out with a watery smile as her son came running off the porch and toward the car.

Harry moved away and allowed the family to have a moment together. He walked over to the house and walked through the door to see Shane storming in and out of the living room.

“Damn woman spent the whole time packing up useless shit instead of the stuff she and her son would need.” Shane groused to him upon noticing him.

Harry looked to where Shane was furiously gesturing and felt amusement at the stacks of what looked like photo albums on the coffee table and only two suitcases filled with what must only be a small fraction of their clothes next to it. He noticed a couple of canned food on the coffee table and watched as Shane walked back and forth from the kitchen to the living room, placing more canned food with the others.

“Didn’t pack any food and only packed enough clothes as if they’re going on a trip for the weekend. Unbelieveable.” Shane growled.

“Can’t fault her for believing this would only last for a short while.” Harry commented lightly.

Shane shot him a look and Harry turned away. He felt the same as Shane felt. Anyone who believed that this whole situation would end next week were the ones who were going to be in for a rude awakening, mostly in the form of someone close to them dying in the most gruesome way possible. Harry has seen it happen countless of time during the war and never wished to see it happen again to anyone else.

“I’ll tell her to pack properly. We should’ve been ready to leave as soon as we got here.” Shane grumbled to himself as he walked past Harry.

Harry watched him go before turning to look around the house. He flexed his fingers. He didn’t like being away from his patient and wanted dearly to return back to Rick’s side, but he wanted to give the man a moment with his family, even if he wasn’t awake to realize his family were so close.

The canned food on the coffee table drew his attention again and he headed for the kitchen to finish what Shane had started. They needed to leave as soon as possible, preferably before it got too dark. He wasn’t comfortable with going through their personal stuff to help finish packing for them, so getting the food together was much better than standing around doing nothing.

He was just about done getting every single food that could survive for months without the need of refrigerating when Lori stormed back into the house.

“Do you have a bag I can put the food in?” Harry asked gently.

“Yeah, let me get it.” She muttered and walked past him.

She walked down the hall and opened the hall closet. She rummaged around in there for a moment before coming back out with a long gym bag.

“Used to belong to Carl. He wanted to play baseball when he was six and wanted the biggest gym bag when we went shopping.” She laughed fondly at the memory and Harry smiled as he tried to imagine a smaller version of Carl trying to carry everything in a bag that had likely been larger than himself.

She handed him the bag and watched as Harry packed the canned food into the gym bag.

“Will this truly…” She hesitated and brought her hand up to her mouth almost as if she couldn’t force the words out. “Will this not end soon? Surely the government, or someone out there, is close to finding a cure for all of this or maybe they’ve found it already.”

Harry smiled at the hopeful wisp in her voice. He wished such a thing would happen. He wanted this to end before anyone close to him died, before there was nothing left but the dead and decaying bodies. But a larger part of him immediately rejected the thought.

“I want nothing more than for that to happen, but it’s unlikely.”

“And how would you know?” She snapped, her anger coming back quick like a whip.

“Because if there was a cure, we would all know about it.” He told her. “They would not keep the solution to ending all of this to themselves, not with how fast the...whatever this is...is spreading.”

“Well then, maybe they’re close to finding it.”

Harry shook his head.

“Something like this, it’ll be long before a cure is found. Firstly, they would have to figure out what exactly this thing is and then go through trials and errors of perfecting the cure so that it’ll work on us and not kill us instead. We need to prepare for a long road. It could end in a week, as unlikely as that sounds, but it’s better safe than sorry, Mrs. Grimes.”

He tried, he really tried to get through to her, but he could see the stubbornness in her eyes. She didn’t want to accept that this would go on longer than a couple of weeks and Harry couldn’t fault her for that. Deep inside, he wanted to believe in the same thing, but what the war had put him through and what happened after the war, it made it impossible for him to believe in such things.

Harry turned away from her and finished packing up the canned food. He looked out the open windows in the living room and saw Shane and Carl in the car. Carl was in the back, sitting as close as he could to Rick while Shane watched on in the front seat.

“Come on, let’s finish packing.” Harry urged her to move and she did after a few moments of staring at him.

He zipped the bag up and carried it outside. Shane saw him coming and popped open the boot. With his own bags in there, it was going to be a tough squeeze, but he managed to get the bag in after shuffling and moving the other bags around.

Harry took this time to grab his two bags of medical supplies and started taking stuff out.

“Hey, can someone hand me that satchel?” Harry called out, not too loudly for anything in the neighborhood to hear, but loud enough for the two in the car to hear him.

“Hey, give this to him, bud.” Shane ordered and a few moments later Carl appeared at his side with the satchel in his small hands.

“Thank you, Carl.” Harry smiled genuinely down at Carl who beamed.

Harry started placing the stuff he just took out neatly into the satchel. He would feel much more comfortable with the most important supplies with him, but there was only so much he could fit into the bag without drawing suspicion. Bandages, rubbing alcohol, surgical sutures, a small bag of cotton bolls, and doctor prescribed pain pills that he had managed to swipe days before the sudden increase in patients became too much should be enough for emergencies.

“Is my dad really going to be all right?” Carl asked in a little voice.

Harry paused in what he was doing and gave Carl his full attention. His eyes were downcast and he was biting his trembling lips harshly. Harry bent and gently tugged his lip from between his teeth. He hooked a finger under Carl’s chin and urged him to meet his eyes.

“He’ll be fine. He’s as safe as he could be now that he’s out of that hospital. After some more rest, he’ll wake up and then we’ll nurse him back to health and he’ll be his old self soon enough.” Harry reassured him.

Carl smiled at the thought and Harry grinned at managing to cheer up the little boy if just a bit. He patted Carl on the shoulder and ruffled his hair before standing back up. Carl watched him finish packing before he spoke again.

“Where are we going? Shane said we had to leave.” Carl asked.

“We’re going to the refugee center in Atlanta. They’ve got the army protecting the place and food for everyone.” Harry didn’t tell Carl that it was likely the place wouldn’t have enough food to last everyone throughout whatever was happening. There was no telling how long this epidemic would last. Which was why it was important for them to pack as many food as they could.

He didn’t want to worry the kid and certainly didn’t want Carl to run to his mom and tell her what he was told. It sounded like Shane faced a war trying to talk her into leaving, he didn’t want to undo the man’s work.

Harry closed the boot of the car and hefted the satchel over his neck and settled it on his shoulder. It was a strange weight, one he wasn’t used to, but as he shifted the bag around he figured it won’t take long before he got used to it.

“Get back in the car with Shane, your mother and I will bring everything in.” Harry told him as they made their way back onto the sidewalk.

“No, you and Carl stay in the car, I’ll help Lori bring everything in.” Shane was already getting out of the car before he finished talking.

Harry huffed before his eyes caught sight of Rick. The feeling of not wanting to be far from Rick came back in full force and he found himself nodding before he even realized it.

Carl opened the backseat door and crawled inside while Harry took Shane’s spot behind the wheel.

“Know how to handle one of these?”

Harry turned to see Shane holding out a handgun to him, the same pistol he had seen Lori holding moments before. He reached out and grasped the gun in his hands, turning it over this way and that to get a feel of it before he expertly popped the magazine out to check how many bullets were in there before he placed the magazine back into the gun and undid the safety.

“Yes, I do.” Harry looked up at Shane who looked impressed.

“All right. Wish I had an extra gun when we were back in that hospital.” The man smirked and pivoted on his heel to head into the house.

Harry watched him go for a moment before turning around in his seat to watch Carl play with one of his dad’s hands.

He sent a pulse of his magic to check his surroundings and tensed when he sensed a couple of Walkers shuffling around. They weren’t nearby, but they were steadily getting closer. He’ll give it half an hour before the first one reached them and that’s if they didn’t make any noise to draw their attentions.

He watched as Shane and Lori walked back and forth between the house and the car, bags and suitcases in hand as they worked together to bring everything they needed out into the car. His bags of medical supplies were moved up to the front to make room in the boot and Harry placed them in the backseat where Rick’s feet would have been if he were sitting upright; it was the best place for them, where they were least likely to get stepped on.

By the time the first Walker was within sight and spotted them, they were ready to leave. Harry moved to the backseat and sat next to the door with the broken window. They moved Rick so that he was leaning against Harry, who had to lean against the door to make it more comfortable for the man. Carl sat on the other side with Rick’s legs over his lap, his dad’s other hand grasped firmly between his tiny ones.

Lori and Shane sat upfront with Lori turned in her seat to watch Carl and Rick. If there were a tightness around her eyes and her lips were pressed together thinly at the sight of Rick leaning against the doctor, no one said a word. Harry could see why she would be upset with their position even if she didn’t know he was gay, but he was not doing it to have the feel of Rick’s body against his. It was the best position to make sure Rick was comfortable and no strain was being put on his wound. He could only hope she’ll understand that soon and not let those negative emotions he could see in her eyes brew.

Harry had no idea what will come of them. He watched through the rear windshield as they left the small, quiet neighborhood behind. He looked around at the other people in this car and realized with a jolt that he did not want to see any of them come to harm.

When the decision to move to America had first formed within his mind, Harry had vowed to never get close to anyone. Becoming a doctor would satisfy his undying need to help others and with that job came people who he couldn’t ignore. He hadn’t had it in him to be cold to his patients or their loved ones and had became a favorite, well-known figure in the hospital amongst them. He allowed them to become friendly with him, but he never allowed himself to go further than what was necessary to make them comfortable and help them through whatever they were dealing with.

He never saw that he would come to care so much for the people in this car and now that he’s realized this, he made another vow. To protect them from whatever will be thrown at them. The road they were going down was going to be long and full of grief if the dead continued to rapidly outnumber the living, and Harry was prepared to take the brunt force of everything that will come at them.

He was prepared for all of this and he looked down at Rick who’s head was lolling back on his shoulder and smiled gently at the comatose man. He was going to help bring Rick back to health. He may not have met the man before he was shot, but from the stories Shane had told him during his many visits, Harry was looking forward to meeting the man himself.

He looked past Carl and out the window and strengthened his heart for whatever was to come. It was moments like this that Harry wished he had full control of his magic, but he was going to get through this while under its limited use. It was all he could do and he was not going to fail the people in this car, he was never going to let the people close to him die again. Not ever again.

~ End ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author’s Note:** It has been a while, but we’re finally here with the second chapter! I strive to make the minimum of words to be 5k and nothing less, but I also realize that it feels a bit weird cutting off in the middle of days; these two chapters and the third one are going to happen all within the same day and it seems ridiculous to not just write the full days in one chapter. So, instead of combining ch1 and ch2 along with ch3 (which hasn’t been written yet), I’m going to write ch3 and post that and then chapter 4 will cover the next day all in one; how do you guys feel about that? Time between updates will probably be longer, but it’ll mean longer chapters!
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> And I know what some of you are probably thinking, “You have ‘not a fan of Lori’ in the warning, why is Harry so nice to her? Why did he feel fondness toward her!?”. As for that, as of right now, Harry has no reason to hate her. All he sees is a woman who is fierce and brash, but nothing to hate her for. But trust me, things will change as the chapters go on. I want the animosity Harry will feel for her to appear slowly, I don’t want it to pop up so suddenly without any explanation. So please, bare with our favorite doctor being kind to the queen of bitches.  
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> And with that, thank you all for reading! I hoped you all enjoyed this chapter as much as the first one! If any of you prefer to read over on AO3, I am under the username _SpiderRealm_.  
>  _Edited 10/23/2017:_ Not much was changed in this chapter either. Just a few sentences added for better context and some stuff added that should help some things make sense. Work has been tough, the store is too fast paced for me, but I can’t quit; me, my mom, and my sister need the money badly. I don’t know how quickly I can get these chapters fixed and the next one written and uploaded, but know that this story has not been abandoned! I will see this story to completion, I promise you all that!
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> ****  
> **Until the next chapter, cya!**  
>  ~ Spider  
> 


	3. Day 15 (part 3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Note:** This work is unbeta’d and all editing/proofreading is done by myself. I apologize for any mistakes that were missed and welcome anyone to point out said mistakes if they wished to. Thank you for understanding!

~ Chapter 3 - Day 15 (part 3) ~

Harry tightened his grip on the unconscious Rick and stared with narrowed eyes out the windshield as Shane moved the car slowly at a snail’s pace through the tightly packed highway. It seemed that others had had the same idea and were heading toward the refugee center in Atlanta, it was just bad luck that they all decided to go at the same time. With hundreds of people heading for the same location all at once, it caused the highway leading into the city to back up and it felt like they’ve been in this same spot for hours.

A car honked a few ways in front of them which caused others to angrily honk their horns. Harry scowled at the unnecessary loud sounds.

“Mom?” Carl called out hesitantly from the back seat, his eyes wide as he gazed around at the honking cars. “Are we going to make it?”

“It’s okay, sweetie.” Lori reached back and patted Carl’s knee. “We’ll get there. We just need to wait for these cars to move. There’s probably so many people wanting to get in that things are going so slowly. We’ll be there soon.”

Carl sent her a weak smile and nodded before he continued to stare out the window.

Harry looked back out his broken window. There wasn’t much to look at. All around them were cars of different models, painted in different colors. One side of the highway, the one leading into the city, was jammed packed with cars and trucks while the other side was depressingly void of any cars except for the one or two that would race down the empty road away from the city as if the devil were on their heels.

There had been others who had tried to use the other highway as a shortcut into the city, but no one allowed those few to exit out of this godawful traffic. Not for anything, as they found out when Shane had gotten frustrated and tried to get them out. Not even his police sirens got people to move. When faced with what looked like the End, titles like police officers were pushed to the back and were treated like everyone else. No one was special, no one else mattered when people had their own safeties and the ones of their loved ones to look after. This was another type of thinking Harry saw forming in what he had personally taken to calling the New Era of this world and he can already see the trouble that could arrive from it.

Movement from inside the car next to them drew his attention and he could see two men arguing in the front seats, hands gesturing wildly as three women and two children cowered in the back of the car. From how the two men were constantly gesturing to the cars in front of them, he could take a guess to what they were fighting about.

He turned away from the private scene, but mostly to let his neck rest from being twisted around almost like an owl to look behind him through the window. He was done with looking at cars and more cars. He leaned his head back against the empty window frame to look up at the sky and saw that the sun was starting to set. He watched as the dark grey clouds drifted idly across the sky and wished he had his broomstick, to fly away from all of this and find himself a little island uninhabited by any humans and surrounded by waters too dangerous to be reached by boat.

He looked at Carl who was back to staring down at his dad’s bare legs, his little hands playing with the hair on Rick’s left leg. Lori sat with her back against her door, her fingers poking and prodding at the skin on her bottom lip as she stared worriedly out the windshield. Shane’s fingers were tapping restlessly against the steering wheel and shifted ever so slightly. He could take them away from here, side Apparate them to anywhere else, far away from here. If only he had the full use of his magic, if only he hadn’t...if he hadn’t had...

“So much for getting there before dark.” Shane groused, tearing Harry away from his dark thoughts. The sound of Shane’s fingers drumming on the wheel sounded louder to Harry than they should.

“Looks like it’s going to be raining soon,” Harry commented lightly for lack of anything else to say.

Shane leaned forward to glance at the sky through the windshield and hummed in agreement.

“Hopefully, we get there before it does.” Shane said leaning back in his seat.

Harry sighed and sunk back against the car door. He had been in this position for what felt like hours and his legs were starting to feel numb. Despite becoming a bit thinner due to not getting the right nutritions in his coma, Rick was still a fully grown man and he was still heavy. His deadweight weighed down heavily on Harry’s legs and he wasn’t looking forward to getting out of this car and having the feeling come back to his numb legs.

“That’s it.” Shane said after another moment of tense filled silence and turned off the car with an irritated flick of his wrist.

“What’re you doing?” Lori glared at Shane and Carl sat forward at their tones to see what was happening.

“We haven’t been moving for the last fifteen minutes and we’re just wasting fuel right now. If a significant distance between this car and the next appears, I’ll cut it back on then. But for now, I’m keeping the car off.” Shane said, his voice set.

He unbuckled his seatbelt and sat back with a tired groan. He had kept the thing buckled so that Carl didn’t see him undoing his as a sign to remove his own seatbelt. If things got tricky and they needed to move the car away from this spot as fast as possible, they didn’t want to worry about Carl not having his seatbelt on. Upon seeing Shane unbuckling his seatbelt, Carl immediately did the same and squirmed restlessly in his seat. Now that the car was off, there will be enough time for Carl to hurriedly put his seatbelt back on if something were to happen.

Lori didn’t look happy with the answer, but looking at her, Harry could see that she didn’t want to start an argument in front of Carl. So instead, she took her own seatbelt off and opened the door to the car without saying a word.

“Where are you going?” Carl asked before Shane could. He shuffled forward to look at his mom from over the seat.

“I need some fresh air, sweetie. Can’t take another moment in this god awful car.”

The obvious jab to Shane’s police car, the one he and Rick had been using for years as the small town they were in allowed the other officers to pick their patrol cars amongst the ones they had, didn’t go unnoticed by the other adults and Harry could see Shane’s hands tightening on the steering wheel before they loosened and the man snorted disdainfully and turned his head away from Lori.

“Can I come out, too?” Carl asked excitedly.

Lori looked as if she were going to refuse, but she took one look at Carl’s tired face and nodded reluctantly. Carl let out a whoop and pushed his door open and scrambled out of the car.

“But you stay close to me, you hear? I don’t want you wandering off.” Lori said sternly and little Carl nodded as he practically skipped to his mom’s side, his little body twisting this way and that as he happily enjoyed being out from the car that they had been in for hours.

Lori looked satisfied and turned away from the car after shutting the passenger’s door far more strongly than she should have.

“Damn woman.” Shane muttered to himself. “Does she really think it safe to leave the car and let Carl out, too?”

Harry nodded and stared worriedly at the tree lines just a few feet from them. They were within the traffic with only one lane of cars separating them from the group of trees that lined the right side of the highway. There was no telling what was hiding in those shadows the trees created and he didn’t want to find out while little Carl and Lori were outside the protection of the car.

“Just have your gun out and ready, just in case.” Harry said.

Harry wished he could go for the one Shane had given him, but he had put that down in one of his medical bags down where his feets should have been and the position he was in made it impossible for him to grab it, not without jarring Rick and he dearly wished to avoid that.

Shane grinned crookedly at him from over his shoulders and showed the loaded gun in his hand with a cheeky wave. “Already ahead of you.”

Harry chuckled before shifting uncomfortably as Rick body seemed to be getting heavier by the second.

“How you holding up back there?” Shane was looking at him through the rearview mirror and noticed the look of discomfort on the doctor’s face.

“All right, I suppose. My legs are numb and it seems Rick is only getting heavier which sounds impossible, but it’s happening.” Harry chuckled.

Shane rolled his eyes good naturedly and turned in his seat. “Come on, let’s move him in a better position for both him and you. If something were to happen, we can’t have your numb legs getting you killed.”

That sent a bolt of fear straight to his heart and made him once again remember that in his nearly Squib state, he was defenseless. He was glad he knew how to use a gun, but he needed to find a way to build up his magic reserves to what they were before the incident. Once they were in a safe place, he’d figure it out and get started. To stay the way he was now was just asking for his death to come soon.

They settled Rick where he wasn’t leaning against Harry, but had his torso resting on Harry’s thighs and his upper back and head supported by two fluffy pillows Lori had brought up front and taking most of the weight off of Harry’s legs. He could feel his legs waking back up and settled himself to the agonizing pins and needles that were sure to follow. He wished he could have stepped out of the car to stretch his legs properly, but he wasn’t comfortable with being so far away from Rick.

Inside of the hospital, Harry had been perfectly okay with leaving Rick alone in his hospital room as he tended to his other patients, but that was when Rick was hooked up to so many machines that kept him alive. Being outside of the hospital with his weak magic being the only thing keeping Rick under stasis, Harry didn’t want to entertain the idea of leaving Rick by himself for any amount of time.

“Better?” Shane grinned when he got a satisfied groan in response.

Shane leaned against the car door so that he can keep an eye on Lori and Carl while also being able to see Harry and Rick comfortably. He watched as Lori shuffled in one spot. There wasn’t much room between the tightly packed cars for her to walk around, but Carl was certainly enjoying himself. Watching them, Shane couldn’t help but smile. His eyes rose and he was once again met with the sight of miles upon miles of cars packed together and the smile was wiped from his face.

“What do you think is causing this traffic?” Shane asked eventually, the silence getting to him as he continued to stare at the cars ahead of them.

Harry pressed his lips together and shook his head thoughtfully. “I’m not sure. It could be what Lori had said. A sudden influx of people wanting to get in is sure to cause problems. They have to take in account on who’s entering, what they’re bringing in, and anything else to keep everyone safe.” ‘And to check if anyone is infected…’ What Harry didn’t say hung heavily between them in the brief moment of silence as Harry was lost in thought. “But...it could also be…”

“Walkers.” Shane answered for him.

Harry nodded and bit his lips. It wasn’t impossible to think. There were so many people clogging up the main highway trying to get into the city. He could hear distant shouting and more cars honking way up ahead. All these noises are sure to attract the Walkers and cause trouble for everyone, but there’s no telling how the situation inside the city look like. Images of those roads being overrunned by Walkers sent a shiver down Harry’s spine. With a highly populated city like Atlanta, it opened up more deaths at the hands of the undead and more people getting infected by whatever this thing was. If the city was overrunned...if there was no hope there...he didn’t want to think about it, but the images and scenarios played constantly through his head.

“It’s going to be all right,” Shane said sternly, having seen Harry biting his bottom lip harshly and his eyebrows furrowing as green eyes darkened as whatever was plaguing his mind was running rampant.

Harry sighed and looked through the front windshield. He noticed the suvan to the front left of Shane’s car turning off and the driver’s side door opened violently as if the person driving the suvan had kicked the door open. The force of the slam caught Shane’s attention and the man turned in his seat to see what was happening.

Harry looked at the bottom of the car and saw large feet stuffed in sneakers walk toward the back of the suvan and he was soon greeted by the biggest, ugliest scowl he has ever seen. The man opened the boot of his suvan and dugged around before heaving his thick body to sit inside the boot. In his hands, Harry could see a pack of cigars and the man was currently sticking one between his teeth, his other hand fumbled through his pockets likely looking for a lighter

The passenger’s side of the suvan opened and a thin, frail looking woman stepped out timidly. The man leaned over to see who was getting out and, upon noticing her, shouted loudly.

“Why the hell are you getting out of the damn car?!”

The violent flinch that nearly made the poor woman lose her balance as if she had been struck caused Harry to tense and his eyes to narrow into slits.

When he couldn’t find his lighter, the man barked at the woman to bring him one from inside the car and she rushed to comply. Harry kept a close eye as the woman approached the man and watched the two talk for a bit; well, the woman was doing all the talking and the man was shaking his head ‘no’, his face flushing redder each time the woman pleaded for something and he eventually caved in with a scathing shout.

The woman didn’t look too happy at having won the argument, but she nonetheless walked hurriedly to the back seat door and talked through the tinted windows to someone inside. Harry couldn’t see who she was talking to, but he soon got his answer when the door opened and a little girl, equally thin and frail looking like the woman, stepped out from the car and huddled close to who was obviously her mother.

The two moved away from the suvan and found themselves standing next to Shane’s car. The woman was too busy trying to not stare into the cars and at the people inside them to notice she was standing next to a cop’s car, but her daughter noticed and she stared wonderly at Shane who was still in his uniform.

Shane sent her a salute and chuckled deeply at the shy, excited smile he received. Harry grinned at the sight. His grin widen when he saw the exact moment Carl noticed the two and watched Rick’s little boy wander over to the mother and daughter. He looked so happy to see another kid with how widely he was smiling.

“Hi, I’m Carl.”

Harry huffed a small laugh as the two kids introduced themselves, with Carl needing to work an answer from the girl, but ever the nice and sweet boy, he did it in a way that made the girl come out of her shell bit by bit until she was smiling and talking amiably with Carl about anything and everything after introducing herself as Sophia.

“Are you and your son heading to the refugee center, too?” The woman asked before her eyes widen and she ducked her head. “I’m sorry, I should’ve introduced myself before talking. I’m Carol Peletier, it’s very nice to meet you.”

“Lori Grimes,” Lori waved away the apology and introduced herself. “And yes, we are heading toward the center with my husband, his best friend, and his doctor.”

Lori gestured toward the cop car and Harry watched as Carol’s eyes widen at the sight of Shane in his uniform, leaning casually against the car door in the cop car.

“I’m sorry, did you say ‘his doctor’?” Carol asked before she winced a bit as if expecting someone to yell at her for asking such an invasive question. The similarities between her reactions and the ones he experienced growing up were much too alike. Harry didn’t like what the signs were telling him and his eyes narrowed further.

“Yes,” Lori sighed and looked down, her eyes filling with tears. “My husband, Rick, got into an accident while on the job and was in the hospital before everything went to hell and we had to get him out. Rick’s doctor helped Shane get Rick out of that hospital and joined us.”

“You’re so lucky your husband has his doctor with him. I’m sure he’s going to get better soon.” Carol said reassuringly.

The two mothers continued to talk after that, with Lori doing most of the talking and looking a bit annoyed at Carol for her meek responses. Harry saw that Lori had to work to not let the conversations fall and smiled as the woman looked determined to get Carol to talk to her.

Carl and Sophia started to wander away from them. Carl took after his mother and led the shy Sophia after him, but with his little hand wrapped around hers.

“Carl,” Lori noticed the distance growing between her and her son and called out before he could get past the car in front of them. “Always within my sight, all right?”

“Yes, mom.” Carl nodded and turned toward Sophia with a smile.

Lori turned back to Carol and shot a glance at the man she rode with when he shuffled out from the large trunk and made his way to the front where he jumped onto the hood of the suvan and lifted one leg to rest on the car with him while the other dangled.

“So, who’s the man you’re with?” Lori asked.

Carl smiled weakly and looked at the man briefly before quickly turning back to Lori. “He’s my husband, Ed Peletier.”

Harry looked to Ed and wrinkled his nose at the smell of smoke that wafted through the air and into the car. He looked down at Rick and placed an air ventilation charm around his head. His chest tightened at the use of magic and he shivered as a chill ran sickeningly down his spine.

He turned his attention back toward the eggheaded man just in time to see him shoot Carol an irritated, dark look over his shoulders. Harry felt himself tense at the look of hate and cruelty in those eyes that reminded him of his dear uncle and aunt. He placed a hand on Rick’s chest, away from his stitches, and gripped the fabric of his shirt tightly. The large man did not look happy that his wife was talking so easily to someone else.

His eyes darted over to Sophia when she left out a happy squeal and felt his mouth pull into a deep scowl when her father turned the dark stare toward his daughter with an unfamiliar emotion running through those dark eyes.

“When we get to the refugee center, we’ll keep a close eye on Carol and her little girl.” Shane snarled and Harry nodded immediately in agreement.

He was not going to take his eyes off of Carol and Sophia, not with that man around. He was only guessing to what could be happening behind closed doors in the Peletier family, but the signs he was seeing were much too obvious.

Harry looked to Lori and saw the completely oblivious look in the woman eyes, but he knew that she would soon pick up the signs for what they were and come to the same conclusion as him and Shane.

The sun had long since set when Carl and Sophia made their way back to Shane’s car. Harry shot another look at the forest just to the side and briefly wondered if he should send a magic pulse out to take a look at the area, but decided against it; not when he still had Rick under a magical stasis plus the ventilation charm around him. He could feel what was left in his core slowly draining away, he did not want to speed that up. It was too dangerous.

“Mom,” Carl stressed out as he came to her side and looked up at her with an adorable pout. “I’m hungry.”

“Oh sweetie…” Lori ran her hand through his dark brown hair. “Let’s see what we have to eat in the car.”

Carl nodded and made to follow after Lori when Carol hesitantly stepped up and stopped Lori.

“I’ve got some packed lunches in the car, I’ll be more than happy to give Carl some.” Carol said hesitantly.

“Oh no, we can’t…” Lori hesitated on spot and Harry could see her wanting more than nothing to save their food and take the other woman on her offer.

“Please, I doubt we’re going to have access to a fridge at the center, so it’ll all end up going to waste in a day or two. Ed told me I made too much, so the quicker we can get rid of them, the better for everyone.”

It was the most they heard Carol speak and Lori nodded her head silently with a grateful smile.

Harry could see Carol sigh in relief at not having her offer turned down and watched her head toward the suvan. By this time, people had gotten sick of staying in their cars all day and were milling about. Carol had to squeeze herself past two women before she made it to her car.

His eyes narrowed when Ed jumped down from the hood of the suvan and quicken to reach the left side back door just as she tried to open it. Harry couldn’t see their heads from this angle and could only hear hushed, harsh whispering from Ed before a downtrodden Carol came back toward them.

“I’m sorry, guess we didn’t actually have enough.” Carol said through a watery smile.

The words sounded hollow with a waver to them, as if someone had told her to say those words to them and Harry snarled at Ed’s overly large head as the man heaved himself back on the hood of his suvan with an annoyingly pleased look on his chubby face.

“Don’t have enough, my ass.” Harry hissed.

Lori was just telling Carol that they had some canned food in the car when the sounds of helicopter blades made them all jump. Harry stuck his head out of the window and stared with wide eyes as three helicopters flew above them so fast he could barely process what was happening.

“Shane?!” Harry shouted when the man kicked open the door and jumped out of the car.

“Stay here!” Shane shouted back and slammed the door close, his gun held tightly between his hands as he ran toward the forest where Harry knew opened up on the other side a bit over a relatively small cliff that looked over the city.

“Carl, get in the car with daddy and Harry!” Lori shouted over her shoulder as she ran after Shane and Harry cursed at the woman for leaving her son behind. If someone or something came to harm them, he wouldn’t be able to do anything, not when he was weak, not when he had to worry about Rick’s stitches from tearing, not when the gun was down by his feet where he couldn’t reach with Rick in his lap.

The other backdoor opened and the two kids crawled inside of the car and huddled close together after Carl slammed the door shut. Harry’s eyes shot toward Carol in time to see her upper arm being gripped bruisingly tight within Ed’s large hand, the man having stopped the woman from following after her daughter and Harry could see that she wanted nothing more than to break free from Ed’s grip and be by her daughter’s side as the man started hissing at her.

“Harry, what’s going on? Why did Shane and mom run into the forest with the others?!” Carl said frantically, referring to the group of people who had had the same idea as Shane and Lori and had headed toward the small cliff.

Harry opened his mouth to answer when the sounds of multiple explosions was heard coming from the city. Even from their position so far away, it sounded like the explosions were happening right in front of them. Carl and Sophia screamed at the explosions and crawled over the duffle bags to hug Harry’s legs as they started to cry in fright.

When Sophia cried out for her mom, Carol used the distraction the explosions caused to rip herself from Ed’s grip and ran toward the car. The dark promises in Ed’s eyes had Harry snarling, but he didn’t have time to worry about that as Carol got into the car and pulled Sophia over the backseat and into her arms, whispering “It’s okay, sweetie. Everything’s going to be okay.” under her breath repeatedly.

They stayed huddled in the car for what felt like hours when Harry, who never took his eyes from the treelines even as he continuously ran his hand through Carl’s hair as the boy sniffled, noticed people coming out and kept his eyes out for Lori and Shane. They soon emerged from the group of trees and Harry wanted nothing more than to jump out from the car and run toward them for answers, but he stayed put.

Lori was the first to reach the car and opened the passenger side door. Carol moved her legs from the passenger seat just as Lori collapsed into the seat.

“Mom!” Carl cried out and detached himself from Harry’s legs to crawl over the backseat and into his mother’s waiting arms. He kept asking her what had happened, what those noises were, but Lori, who was pale and shaking, said nothing and merely pulled Carl closer to her chest and buried her face into his hair as her shoulders started to shake.

Shane made his way over to Harry’s broken window and crouched down so his head was at level with the window. His arms crossed over the windowsill and his hands dangled limply into the car, the gun nowhere in sight.

“How bad was it?” Harry said softly. He didn’t want to ask, not when the man was as pale as Lori, but he needed to know. Harry noticed that the man’s hands were shaking badly. He reached up to wrap his hand around one of Shane’s and gripped the large hand tightly in his as he waited patiently for the man to gather himself.

Shane shuddered in a breath and ran his other hand through his curly hair, not making an attempt to shake Harry’s hand from his.

“Bad, really bad.” Shane whispered, not wanting his voice to carry over to the children. “They just bombed the streets. Some buildings went down, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t aiming for the buildings, but for the streets. It was...bad...I can’t...”

Harry swallowed heavily as the only possible conclusion came into his head and he looked down at Rick, the hand gripping the unconscious man’s shirt shaking.

“The city was overrunned by Walkers…” Harry whispered, his words only for Shane to hear.

“How’d you… did you ‘see’ the Walkers in the city?” Shane asked, his eyes showing how horrified he was at the thought of seeing so many Walkers in the streets, so much that the city had to be bombed.

Harry shook his head. “No, I can’t see that far, but why else would they bomb the city if it wasn’t overrunned?”

Shane sighed heavily and nodded. His eyes moved toward Lori and he frowned worriedly as the woman cried into her son’s hair. Harry gripped Shane’s hand tighter. He had only heard the city being bombed. He couldn’t imagine actually seeing it happen, to see their hopes for survival being blown to smithereens. He decided to keep an eye on them, in case they started to have nightmares over this, but with what was happening, he was absolutely certain everyone was going to be having nightmares tonight.

“Mom, Shane, what happened? Did something explode? Was it one of the cars?” Carl asked endlessly. “Are we still going into the city?”

Lori pulled away from Carl enough to show her face. It took her a moment to regain her breath, during which Carl had turned to look questioningly at Shane.

“We can’t go into the city, it’s too dangerous now.” Shane said gruffly.

“But...where could we go? Is there a place we can go?” Carol spoke up, tears in her soft eyes.

“We can…” Lori finally managed to speak, but Shane cut her off.

“We can’t go back to the house. The town had been overrunned, you’ve seen it. We would only put ourselves in danger.”

Harry could see the anger simmering in Lori’s eyes as she glared at Shane for rejecting her idea before she could say it. Harry could dearly understand the need to go back to the one place that felt safe to her, the only place that felt right after witnessing something so devastating. He could understand, but he also knew that Shane was right.

“We need to go somewhere that isn’t highly populated.” Harry muttered into the silence. “Somewhere that isn’t overrunned by Walkers. There had been Walkers heading for your house when we left, there’s no telling how many are there now.”

“But those Walkers could’ve went past the house by now. We won’t know unless we turn back!” Lori argued.

Shane scowled and opened his mouth to argue back when little Carl leaned back from his mother’s embrace and looked at his mom pleadingly in the eye.

“I don’t want to go back to the house! I’m scared, what if the Walkers are still there?! We can’t go back!” He cried.

Lori stared wide eyed at her son, her mouth working open and close like a goldfish. The inner struggle showed on Lori’s face as she stared down into her son’s tear-stained face. She heaved a huge sigh and nodded her head.

“All right, we won’t go back.” She said softly and ran her hand through her son’s hair. “But where are we going to go if we can’t go back home or into the city?”

Harry and Shane shared a look. Harry couldn’t think of a place they could actually go. It would have to be near civilization, obviously. Not only so that whoever the government sends to look for survivors could find them easily, but also in case they ran out of food and supplies and needed to head down to the town to get more. Harry wasn’t above stealing if it gave his group a chance at surviving long enough for the government to send help, however long that will take.

“It’ll have to be close to a town,” Harry voiced his thoughts. He looked down at Rick in thought and bit his lip.

“I thought you said…” Lori started, her eyebrows drawn in anger as her head whipped toward Harry.

“I said it would have to be close to a town, not in one. If the government sends in help, we have to be close enough for them to be able to find us.” Harry said patiently. “But this place can’t be too close, otherwise it would defeat the purpose of staying outside of towns and cities to avoid the Walkers.”

“It should also be near a water tank or a lake,” Shane put in.

“Will we really be out here long enough to run out of water?” Lori raised an eyebrow incredulously.

Harry thought back to the three jugs of water and the package of water bottles he had seen in the trunk. Add that to whatever Carol might have in her car (because they were clearly coming with them, no questions asked.)...

“It’s highly possible.” Harry answered after a moment.

Something like this was so different from the diseases and epidemics that have happened in the past. Harry wasn’t sure when the government was going to find the cure or if there was a cure to be found. Planning for this to last longer than a month would be the best route for them and Harry told them as such.

Shane ran a frustrated hand through his curly hair and shook his head.

“I honestly can’t think of anything, and I know the area like the back of my own hands.” Shane chuckled humorlessly and looked toward Harry with a questioning eyebrow raised.

“I can’t think of any place, either.” Harry shook his head, but he wasn’t surprised. He had spent so long trying to run from his past that he had never bothered to explore the area that he lived in besides from looking for the local stores. He wouldn’t know where to look if his life depended on it and Harry huffed at the irony of it.

Lori bit her lips and shook her head when the two looked at her. They sat in silence for a moment and Shane was about to tell Lori to get the map from inside the glove compartment when Carol raised her hand and shied away when all eyes turned toward her.

“I...I might know of a place…” She said quietly and hunched her shoulders as if expecting someone to turn her suggestion down.

“Go on,” Harry said gently.

Carol fidgeted before continuing. “There’s the Bellwood Quarry. It’s pretty far away from downtown Atlanta and there’s a lake of fresh water. We used to go down there for camping before they shut it down to the public.”

Harry could feel the wide smile growing on his face and a quick glance at Shane and Lori showed that they were also pleased with Carol’s suggestion.

“That’s perfect!” Lori exclaimed and sent a happy grin to Carl when he perked up at her happy tone.

Shane released Harry’s hand and Harry brought it down on Rick’s head as Shane ran around the car and entered the car in the back with Harry.

“Open the glove compartment and hand me that map. If we’re careful enough, we can sneak out of here without anyone noticing and head for the Quarry.”

Harry bit his lips as Lori did what Shane ordered and Carol looked up hesitantly.

“We’re not going to tell people about the Quarry?”

Shane sighed and grimaced, “I don’t like it either, but we can’t have so many people knowing about the Quarry. That defeats the whole purpose of avoiding highly populated areas, plus we don’t know who could be carrying the infection and there’s not enough of us to check every single person in the area. It would bring only disaster as everyone tried to check others for the infected ones.”

Harry sighed and Carol nodded reluctantly. The woman looked down at her daughter and lovingly brushed her hair away from her face.

“Do you remember the Quarry, sweetie?” Carol whispered as Lori handed Shane the map. “We used to go there all the time whenever Ed was away on business. I bet you it’s going to look exactly the same when we get there.”

Harry turned away from the mother and daughter whispering to each other to give them some semblance of privacy and watched as Shane poured over the map before a triumphant grin appeared on his face.

“Okay, I’ve found the best route we could take. If we wait for a moment, we could get there without drawing attention to ourselves.”

“Why should we wait? Why can’t we go now?” Lori demanded.

“If we leave now, others are going to snap out from their shock and follow after us thinking we’ve got some place to go. We can’t have people following us there. It would be better for us if we wait for what had happened to the city to spread and allow people to leave on their own.”

Lori settled down after that and went back to comforting her son now that she had calmed down enough to do so.

Harry watched both mothers comfort their children and felt the smile on his face grow wider. He brush his hand through Rick’s short hair that Lori had trimmed whenever she visited the hospital and felt hope blossom in his chest.

He had never been to Bellwood Quarry. He didn’t know what the place looked like or if the area was well protected or not. He would have to go through his magical trunk and read through his books on warding to see if there were any he could do in his magically weaken state. The ones he had around his apartment room were weak, but they did their jobs and Harry was certain he could encase their area with the same wards. They only alerted him if anyone broke into his apartment. They did nothing to stop the intruders, so that was going to be a problem when the intruders were the undead intent on eating them. He and the others would have to put up additional defenses.

“What the hell are you two doing in here for so long!”

Harry screamed at the sudden noise and shied away from the window as far as he could without jostling Rick. His arms rose to hover over Rick’s head protectively and he curved his upper body to better block Rick from the sudden appearance.

Ed’s red flushed face peered angrily through his broken window and Harry moved from his protective position over Rick after he realized who had startled him. He scowled heavily and placed a hand over his racing heart. Shane had already taken the safety off of his gun and aimed it at the window the moment Ed had shouted.

Shane cursed himself for not seeing the large man coming. If he had been a Walker, Harry could have been...the doctor could have been…He gripped the gun tighter and sneered at Ed.

“I suggest you step on back and get away from this car, you hear.” Shane ordered.

“I’m her husband, I ain’t going anywhere without her and my daughter.” Ed sneered back and turned angry eyes to the cowering woman. “Now get out of this car. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“But, Ed…”

“I said,” Ed narrowed his eyes and leaned into the window. “Don’t make me. Repeat. Myself.”

Carol shuddered in a breath and nodded shakingly. She reached for the door handle with trembling hands before Lori’s hand shot out and she gripped Carol’s arm tightly as she glared hatefully at Ed.

“Now you listen here, she and Sophia are not leaving this car. It’s too dangerous for them to stay here and we’ve made plans to head for the Quarry and wait there for help to come. You can follow if you want, but Carol and her daughter are coming with us.”

Harry wanted to applaud Lori for what she said, but didn’t dare, not when Ed was so close to him and Rick. The man looked so angry, Harry feared that if he brought his attention to him that the man was going to take his anger out on him and Rick.

The shade of red the man’s face was turning reminded Harry painfully of Uncle Vernon and he vowed to never let Carol leave his eyesight when they got to the Quarry. Harry knew from experience that Ed wanted nothing more than to be alone and away from prying eyes with his wife. Harry was not going to let this man continue to terrorize his wife and it looked like Lori and Shane were on the same page.

Harry glanced behind him and through the windshield to see that some cars had already left while others were starting to leave. They needed to wait for a bit longer.

“You dare…” Ed started.

“She does and you will listen and do what she said. It’s the safest place for your wife and daughter, so I see no point in your arguing against us. Now get in your car and wait for us to leave.” Shane snarled.

“Not without my wife and daughter.” Ed growled.

“Please, it’s okay,” Carol pleaded to Shane and Lori quietly as Sophia huddled against her mother’s side.

Harry’s heart clenched painfully. It reminded him of how he used to be when he was younger, the times when he had did everything the Dursleys asked of him without a word of complaint and how he had gotten annoyed when people would butt their noses in his business when he had a perfect system working between him and the Dursleys. He had learned years later that that system wasn’t perfect or healthy.

He wished dearly to show Carol that she didn’t have to do what that monster told her, that she didn’t have to go with him, but now wasn’t the time.

“Get in your car, NOW!” Shane shouted which frightened Sophia, Carl, and Carol.

Ed geared up and Harry panicked when the man reached for the door handle. He couldn’t let the man open that door, not with the unconscious Rick in his lap, not with two children in the car, not with the man’s frighten wife up front, and not when Shane looked like he would gladly shoot the man.

Harry bit his lips before pressing his lips together in a hard, thin line. Green eyes blazed up at Ed and Harry allowed his magic to coat his vocal cords before speaking.

“Go back to your car and follow us to the Quarry.”

The thing about the Compulsion Charm was that it was powerful magic against other wizards and witches. When used against muggles, it was like using his Magical Echolocation and the magic poured through his words and entered Ed’s mind seamlessly. There was no magic fighting against his, but the effort was more draining than his echolocation, he could feel.

The man sneered and turned away from the police car. They watch the angry man push his way past the crowd of people and entered the suvan wordlessly.

Sweat dotted Harry’s forehead and he felt a bit lightheaded. Even though the muggle had no magic to fight against the Compulsion Charm, it still took a lot out of Harry and he saw black dots swimming before his eyes.

“Harry?!” Shane shouted when Harry groaned and saw his head loll back against the seat.

Before he passed out, the last thing he saw was Carol’s wide, shocked eyes and knew that what he did was worth it. If it meant that Carol and her little girl never had to deal with that monster ever again, he’ll gladly do it again. He found that he would do anything for his group, even if it meant the death of him, he would do it within a heartbeat. He was going to do everything within his power to keep these people safe and happy, and if that meant destroying his magical core by fully depleting his core to protect them then he would gladly and readily do so.

~ End ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author’s Note:** Chapter 3, completed! This chapter has been sitting on my laptop for weeks. I had completed it, but did not like how things went. The conversations and events were so stale, but I didn’t know what to do, so I walked away and left it alone, until yesterday. I read through what I had wrote and rewrote paragraphs and scenes as I went until everything looked as perfect as possible. I hope you guys liked this chapter!
> 
> I’m really am sorry that this took so long to get out, but know that I am never abandoning this story. I have so much planned for it. For any of my fics, don’t let the long wait for chapters make you think the stories have been abandoned.
> 
> And thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favorite, and followed this story! I really appreciate the feedback!
> 
> And as always, if any of you prefer to read over on FF, I am under the username: _SpiderRealm_
> 
>  _EDITED 10/26/2017_ \- _So close to finishing these edits, just the next chapter to do before I get to writing chapter 5! As before, not much was changed in this chapter. A few new sentences, changed a couple of paragraphs, fixed a few mistakes. The next chapter is gonna be a pain to go through, I just know there’s going to be a lot of fixing to make it flow smoother! But just that chapter and I can finally start working on chapter 5!_
> 
> Until the next chapter, cya!  
> ~ Spider


	4. Day 15 (part 4)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter or The Walking Dead, both belong to their respective owners. I am not making any profit off of this work.
> 
>  **Note:** This work is unbeta’d and all editing/proofreading is done by myself. I apologize for any mistakes that were missed and welcome anyone to point out said mistakes if they wished to. Thank you for understanding!

Shane once again (for what felt like the thousandth time) looked through the rearview mirror to glance at the unconscious doctor in the backseat.

Shane returned his eyes back to the road, but he couldn’t exactly focus on the road. He couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened back at the highway.

His hands clenched the steering wheel tightly.

The way Ed Peletier had so simply followed Harry’s command was eery. He should’ve been afraid of Harry. The doctor had clearly done something to the man to get him from using physical force to get his wife and daughter out of the car to calmly going back to his car. To those who didn’t know about the doctor’s magical secret, it would seem that the man had an authority aura that made Ed listen to him, but Shane knew about his powers.

Shane had a good sense on reading someone’s character and a monster like Ed would never have listened to someone as unassuming as the doctor. Add that with how the doctor had fainted seconds after giving the command clued Shane in that the doctor had done something to the large man to get him to leave his wife and daughter in the safety of Shane’s car.

Shane worked his jaw and bit the inside of his cheek.

He knew he should be wary of the doctor, that he should be afraid of the stuff he could do. A sane person would have freaked out and kicked the doctor from the group from fear of the man doing the same to the people he cared about.

But he didn’t.

Shane’s good sense of reading a person’s character has kept him successful in his job. Being in a small town, where everyone knew everyone, it was his job to see past the mask people put on and see them for who they really were. Him and Rick were good at this and this was what made them successful officers.

He knew that the doctor wasn’t the type to abuse his powers. He knew that from the severe reaction the doctor got that he wasn’t going to be using that power again anytime soon. From what Shane had read from the doctor’s eyes and actions, he wasn’t the type to do anything a normal person would fear him doing.

But still...the way he had fainted...he couldn’t help but wonder what happened to his powers and why he got so weak from using them.

He thought back to how easily the doctor used his power against Ed. Not easy on how it was a simple thing to do, but how the doctor didn’t have to fight his moral to do what he did. Shane figured it was the doctor not having any sympathy for someone who clearly abused their daughter and wife, but another side of Shane couldn’t help but think that there might have been a reason for Harry losing his powers. Was it due to a punishment? Or something more sinister?

Shane shook his head from such thoughts when little Carl spoke up from the backseat.

“Are we there, yet?”

Shane managed a small smile at the uttermost boredom heard in Carl’s voice. A glance through the rearview mirror (after once again checking on the doctor) showed Carl slouching in his seat with a deep pouting-scowl marring his face.

They’re been driving most of the night. It was pitch dark outside with nothing but the moon to light the way. The heavy, grey clouds that had covered most of the sky earlier that day were gone, leaving the clear dark sky above them. With no lights coming from the city, the stars popped out, but Shane couldn’t enjoy the beauty of the scene.

He glanced at the radio on the dashboard and saw that it was nearing one in the morning. They had had to wait longer for other people to eventually leave the highway before heading for the Quarry. Most had the same idea as them, realizing that there was no hope in staying inside the city and left for somewhere safe, while others figured the safest place to be was on the highway and blocked the way for the ones who wanted to leave.

Shane had been worried that some people were going to follow them, but was thankful when no one did.

The only car that was following him was the Peletier’s Suvan. They kept their headlights off as to not attract any unwanted attention. It made driving up the roads that wrapped around the hill leading toward the Quarry dangerous and Shane forced himself to focus on the road again.

“Are we there, yet?” Carl whined once more.

“Not yet, sweetie.” Lori said tiredly from up front.

Sitting in between Shane and Lori was Carol and her little girl. There hadn’t been enough room for them to sit in the back, so Lori had to squeeze real close to the window to fit them both up front as Shane couldn’t exactly do the same and drive at the same time.

Carol was barely paying attention to what was going on. She was starting to nod off. Sophia had fallen asleep hours ago, before they had left the highway, the intensity of what had happened had been too much for her and she tired quickly and fell asleep with her head resting on her mom’s thin shoulder.

“How about you go to sleep, I can see you’re barely awake there. By the time you wake up, we’ll be there.” Shane said.

“But…!” Carl started.

“Go to bed, Carl.” Lori turned around and gave the order tiredly. “It’s way past your bedtime, now go to sleep.”

Carl pouted fiercely before nodding reluctantly. He looked around him for a good spot to lie down and chose to curl around his father’s barelegs. The comatose man was still in the hospital gown and Shane made a mental note to put some boxers on Rick the moment they reach the Quarry.

“Here, sweetie. Put this over your father and you can use mines.” Lori instructed Carl to place one of the covers over Rick, particularly around his groin area and Shane breathed a bit easier knowing that Carl won’t get a surprise glance if he were to look up at his dad from the angle he was lying in.

It was tough for Lori when Carl pleaded for her to tuck him in. She tried not to jostle Carol and her sleeping daughter and finally managed to get her son comfortable. It took only a few minutes before soft snoring came from the small bundle under the cover.

Shane and Lori were the only two still awake, Carol having nodded off around the same time Carl did, and Shane took another glance at the doctor and his brother in the backseat before focusing on the road again.

“What happened?” Lori made sure that everyone was asleep before turning to Shane.

He knew what she was asking about, and lord did he wish he could tell her everything. This was too big a secret to keep to himself. After everything that had happened, after witnessing that bombing and the blow to his hopes of them finding a secured location left him reeling, he didn’t know if he could ever feel himself again.

It was as if he were floating in space and watching his body do these things on autopilot. It was like he was there, but not really there at all.

He looked at Lori from the corner of his eye and saw her looking at him desperately.

“What happened to the doctor? Why did he faint like that?!” Lori demanded. She kept her voice low, but Shane could hear the tremble. She was barely keeping herself together, just like him.

Shane took in a deep breath and exhaled quietly. A battle was warring within him and he hoped to all gods that he was making the right decision.

“I don’t know.” He said. “I think this whole thing just got him shook. He was there at the hospital when the army started gunning everyone down. He probably watched his colleagues and patients, people he had been working with and caring for for years, being killed so coldly and it left him reeling. Everything probably became too much for him and he just lost it after getting that bastard to leave Carol and her little girl alone. Can’t really blame him.”

Lying to her felt so wrong. He had known her since high school, she was his best friend’s wife, the mother to little Carl. He didn’t like lying to her, especially over something so big that could help them all, but despite everything that has happened, despite what was going to happen in the future, Shane was a man of his words and he was not going to break the promise he made to the doctor in that hospital.

He was not going to break the doctor’s trust, something Shane was sure was extremely fragile.

“I just hope this was a one time thing. We can’t have him fainting every time something happens.” Lori said scornfully. “We need him to be at his one-hundred percent, Rick needs him.”

“The man been through alot, Lori. We all have.” Shane said through gritted teeth. He didn’t like how Lori was talking about the doctor.

“And what if something happens to Rick while he’s unconscious?” She hummed condescendingly. “What are we supposed to do without our doctor?!”

He could understand her worry, but he hated the way she made it as if the doctor’s health wasn’t important or valid. He worried about Rick, too, but he wasn’t going to start treating the man as if he were nothing but something they could use.

“He’s human, just like the rest of us. I have no idea how long the situation have been going on at the hospital, but anyone in his situation would have had the same reaction as him, after experiencing so much for so long. I don’t even want to think how bad it was in there before I went to get Rick.”

Shane had been torn between being a cop and his best friend’s brother during that time. As a cop, it was his job to help the people in his town; as his best friend’s brother, it was his job to take care of Rick whenever and wherever. In the end, he had to do his job as a cop, or he will never be able to look Rick in the eye ever again for not trying to help their friends and neighbors. It all didn’t matter now. The town had been overrunned by those undead freaks and they were forced to flee. After seeing what happened on the streets, Shane didn’t want to think about what took place inside that hospital. Remembering how those army people had gunned down the infected still brought shivers down his spine.

“I’m glad to see him resting and Rick is doing fine for now. Harry will be up sooner than you expect and he’ll be back to hovering over Rick. So lay off him.” He finished, his voice hard with finality.

Lori rolled her eyes and turned to stare out the window in sullen silence. Shane cursed. He forgot how much of a bitch Lori was. She had her good moments. She was the perfect wife for Rick and took care of Carl so greatly. It was so easy to forget she used to be, and still acts like, the bitchy A-honor roll (as she liked to brag during those days) cheerleader she was in high school.

He settled in for a cold silent ride. He knew how she was. She was going to keep quiet until he apologized, and normally he would have caved in after a couple of minutes to get things back to normal, but he didn’t feel like giving in this time. Lori had to know that what she said was not right and Shane was glad that Harry was unconscious to not hear it.

He used the silence to properly focus on the road. He did not want to run them off the cliff arguing with Lori. He took another peek through the rearview mirror and saw the look of discomfort on Harry’s face.

His heart skipped a beat and nearly a thousand causes for that expression ran rapidly through his head. He wanted nothing more than to pull over and check for whatever was causing that expression on Harry’s face. He was just about to do that when Carol’s sleepy voice spoke up and she pointed at a side road Shane could barely see in the dark.

“There’s a clearing we used to make camp in. It has a dirt road right next to it that leads down to the lake.”

Shane nearly had a heart attack at her sudden awakeness and the car swerved a bit before he came to a stop.

“I’m sorry!” She gasped, her eyes wide as she sat up in alarm.

Shane turned around and saw that Carl was still asleep, and both Rick and Harry were fine; although, Harry was now leaning against the car door and Shane hoped to all gods that he didn’t hit his head against the car door. Looking next to him, he could see Sophia was groggily looking around and that Lori was glaring daggers at Shane.

“It’s fine, you’re fine. Just surprised me, is all.” Shane waved away her apology not unkindly.

He squinted through the darkness and turned the car onto the barely seen road Carol had pointed out. If driving up the concrete road was difficult in the dark, driving on a dirt road was damn near impossible. If it weren’t for the trees lining the roads, Shane would never been able to tell where the road was.

The trees were so dense, they seemed to merge as one in the dark. Shane took wary glances at the dark shadows that clung to the trees, his imagination telling him that anything could be hiding in the dark. After another quick glance at his brother and the doctor in the back, he turned his focus back on the road and gripped the steering wheel tightly. If anything came running out of those trees, they were going to get run over, no hesitations. He was not going to risk his friends’ safety.

The trees were beginning thin as the road opened up to a larger path. The road they were on led further up the mountain while another road branched off to the left and led downwards into the woods. Shane can only guess that that was the road that leads to the lake that Carol had spoken of.

They passed that turn and continued on until they reached a relatively large clearing. It was empty except for an RV sitting along the edges with the lights on inside and Shane could see movement from inside.

Shane jerked the car to a stop and stared wide eyed at Lori and Carol.

“Shit…” Shane cursed as Carol clutched her slumbering daughter closer and Lori reached behind her to cover Carl with the blanket. He placed his hand on the handle of his gun and narrowed his eyes on the RV.

No risks taken.

**XxXxX**

Harry frowned deeply as something tried to niggle at his mind upon waking up. It was weird. He didn’t even remember falling asleep. He blinked open his eyes and stared up at the dark green ceiling that was clearly the inside of his tent.

He blinked owlishly up at the tent’s roof and sat up slowly.

A wave of nausea struck him and the head-splitting headache caused his heart to skip a beat as he was reminded of his Hogwarts years where the Horcrux inside his scar reacted to Voldemort’s presence and emotions.

He rubbed his temples and groaned lowly as the nausea drained away slowly and he swallowed the bile that threatened to rise

 _‘What on earth happened’_ , he thought faintly.

A brief panic overtook him and he clutched at his throat frantically. He sighed in relief when his hand closed around his shrunken trunk that was hooked to a black collar around his neck with both a chain/clip and a Sticking Charm.

After calming his racing heart, he looked around his tent curiously and noticed that he was in his sleeping bag; the air too hot to have it zipped up around him, something he was thankful for.

The next thing he noticed were his duffel bags on the other side of the tent. His tent was a standard 4-person tent. The way his sleeping bag was placed was so it ran along the back wall of the tent, opposite of the tent flaps. His bags were placed on the left side upon entering the tent and he counted the bags to make sure that each of his belongings were there.

Satisfied with his mental checklist, Harry made to rise from the sleeping bag when laughter erupted from somewhere outside.

He paused and tilted his head curiously. It sounded like there were more than the three adults he had been with before falling asleep. An attempt at using his Magical Echolocation to check who the extra people were, and how many there were, caused another wave of nausea to overcome him once again and for his magic to gather what little was left in his reserves and sputter in a weak attempt at expelling outward.

He bent forward and clenched his eyes shut tight as he resisted the urge to fall back down and never move again for the rest of his life. That niggling feeling came back and he thought hard on what his mind was trying to get him to remember. An ugly face sneering at him through a broken car window flashed before his mind's eye and Harry’s eyes snapped open.

He truly looked around him and felt like slapping himself for overlooking that he was in _a freaking tent_ and _not in the car_!

Harry pushed himself to his knees despite the wave of nausea threatening to bring him down and crawled jerkily toward the tent flaps. He unzipped the flaps and pushed them aside hurriedly. He was greeted to the sight of Shane and Carl spooning what looked like beans from bowls with Lori sitting next to Carl smiling on as she watched her son eat; her own bowl of beans sitting in her lap which she ate occasionally from.

Carol and her daughter Sophia were sat close to Shane and Harry ‘s eyes roved around the campsite and zeroed in on Ed, who was sitting at a second campfire away from the others.

Harry sighed in relief, thankful that the bastard wasn’t anywhere near Sophia and her mother.

“Harry!” Carl cried out happily and all conversations stopped as everyone turned to see him hanging halfway out of his tent on his hands and knees.

“Whoa there, take it easy!” Shane jumped up and rushed toward Harry.

Harry waved away the helping hands, only to grasp one of them tightly as another wave of nausea and a splitting pain in his temples drained the energy from his limbs and nearly made him faceplant into the grassy dirty.

“I’m fine, honestly.” Harry grinned weakly up at Shane as the man helped him up and allowed Harry to lean on him as Shane moved them over to the campfire.

“You don’t look too good to me.” An unfamiliar voice spoke out and Harry turned with wide eyes to stare at an older man sitting next to an RV Harry was just now noticing.

“There goes that look again. Wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve had that look thrown at me tonight.” The older man chuckled.

“Hello…” Harry turned questioning eyes toward Shane as the man helped lowered him to the ground before taking a seat himself.

“Harry, meet Dale Horvath. Dale, this is…”

“Doctor Harry Potter-Black.” Dale interrupted and for a brief moment Harry felt his heart stop as he feared the man knew who he was. “Little Carl would not stop gushing over you.” Dale chuckled and Harry turned to grin at Carl who ducked his head with an embarrassed flush overtaking his cheeks.

“A pleasure to meet you.” Harry said politely. He placed a hand over his heart and sighed internally in relief.

“Same to you.” Dale raised his plastic red cup in salute before chugging whatever it was he was drinking.

“Here, eat this.” A woman spoke up and Harry turned to see a woman with wavy blonde hair walking toward him with a bowl in her hands with steam rising from it and a spoon settled in it.

“Thank you…” He trailed off before smiling sheepishly.

“Andrea...Andrea Harrison.” The woman gave him this half smile, half smirk and nodded her head over to another blonde haired woman. “And that’s my little sister, Amy.”

“I’m not little.” Amy protested vehemently.

She did look younger than Andrea. She looked as if she had just graduated from high school. Nevertheless, Harry sent them weak smiles. He was still in shock over the near drainage of his reserves and he could feel cold sweat dotting his upper lip, forehead, and the back of his neck.

He pushed past all of that and focused on the three new people in front of him.

“Seems like you lot had the same idea as us.” Harry commented lightly.

Dale laughed and nodded along with Andrea. Amy sent him a small, sweet smile. “Exactly what the fellow next to you said!”

Harry huffed a laugh and sent Shane a look, to which the man rolled his eyes with a smile and nudged his shoulder with his own.

“But yeah, I was heading here by myself when I came across these two trying to fix their car.” Dale grinned at the Harrison sisters.

Andrea smirked and walked back over to her sister. “Damn thing was cheap and old, wasn’t made to go long distances and broke down on us halfway through our road trip. Luckily for us, it broke down on one of the backroads this old man was taking.” She teased Dale and sat down next to her sister and accepted back her bowl with a quiet ‘thank you’.

Dale let out a huge laugh and took another chug from his drink.

“Where were you heading to, if you don’t mind me asking?” Harry asked curiously.

Shane cleared his throat and nudged Harry. Harry looked at him questioningly, fearing he had said something that might have brought up bad memories for the two blond haired women.

“Eat, you hadn’t had a bite all day.” Shane explained.

“We were on a college road trip. This girl right here,” She nudged Amy’s shoulder with her own. “Wanted to look at her potential colleges in person and wanted to experience the roadtrip our mom and dad spoke of. Apparently,” Andrea leaned forward and staged whispered. “Before the internet was created, people had to actually drive to faraway colleges in order to take a look at the campus and buildings.”

Amy rolled her eyes, yet she was laughing along with everyone else over Andrea’s antics.

Harry nodded with an amused grin, relieved that he hadn’t brought up any bad memories, and gripped the spoon in hand. He shoved the spoonful of beans into his mouth after blowing on it and chewed thoughtfully.

“Salt?” Lori asked.

“Yes, very.” Harry laughed along with everyone and Dale held his hands up exasperatedly.

“All right all right, they’ve been sitting in this old thing,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the RV. “For about a year.”

The man sounded as if he had countless of people pointing out the bland taste and Harry couldn’t help but laugh. He looked at the three new people and smiled brightly. He could see himself liking them, they were good people.

“You can feel it, too?” Shane whispered in his ear, so quiet Harry barely heard him over his spinning head.

“Yeah, they’re good people. I wouldn’t mind having them in our group.” Harry spoke back just as quietly.

He could see Shane nod in agreement and watched for a brief moment as the other man went back to eating before digging back into his own bowl. As Harry continued to shove spoonful after spoonful of beans into his mouth after Lori had handed him the salt, he found the nausea slowly slipping away. He guessed his dizzy spell and headache had been a combination of hunger and the use of the Compulsion Charm.

Harry cursed his weakness. He remembered a time where he was skilled with the Imperius Curse, a time he could do any type of magic he put his mind to with such ease it left those around him either in awe or envy.

He gripped his spoon tightly and looked on at the people sharing stories and laughing, laughing to forget what was happening around them, at what the world was coming to, even if it was for the briefest moment. Not even Ed lurking in the background with his dark glares and mumbles could ruin the atmosphere.

He wanted to keep them happy and he could easily see himself including Amy, Andrea, and Dale in the people he wanted to protect the most. He looked at the giggling sisters and the chuckling elder and smiled amusedly as Amy made a funny face that made Carl and shy, little Sophia giggle.

Harry nearly choked on his beans when he remembered why exactly he was here with Shane and the others in the first place and he turned urgently toward Shane.

“Where’s Rick?!” He whispered hoarsely.

“In the tent Lori brought for her family.” Shane said before placing a hand on Harry’s shoulder at seeing the concern swimming in those emerald green eyes. “He’s fine. His stitches don’t look like they’re infected and I’ve changed the bandages for some clean one.”

His heart skipped a beat.

“His stitches opened?!” Harry tried not to let his panic show, but he could see from the corner of his eyes Dale sending him concerned looks. Harry sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was a doctor. Panicking did nothing but made the situation worse.

“No, but he was spotting a bit. He’s fine. I wouldn’t be out here laughing and trading stories if he weren’t.” Shane whispered gently.

Harry shuddered in a breath and nodded. “I just...I...I need to see with my own eyes. Not that I’m saying you probably did a bad job at it, but I need…”

“To see with your own eyes?” Shane interrupted gently before Harry could repeat himself.

Harry nodded and Shane grinned understandably before nodding his head toward the sky blue tent that looked large enough to comfortably house two grown adults and a child. Harry thanked him and handed Shane his bowl as he stood up.

“Going to bed so soon?” Amy looked disappointed. Andrea suddenly smirked and elbowed her sister. Amy glared at Andrea for the jab before turning her attention back on Harry.

“Not now, but maybe soon.” Harry smiled kindly before taking a step back. “I just need to check up on my patient before fully relaxing with you all. If you’ll excuse me.”

“Go on then. Would hate for you to sit here and fret nonstop while I’m trying to tell my best story.” Dale waved him off with a large grin.

“I swear, if it’s that fishing story with your grandpa…!”

Dale laughed uproariously along with the others and Harry chuckled as he walked away from the campfire. He headed for the sky blue tent, his mind worrying over Rick and how he was doing. He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious for. For all he knew, it was the next night and the spell keeping Rick under stasis had been cut off due to his reserves dropping dangerously low.

“I’m done, mom!” Carl shouted and Harry turned when he heard rapid footsteps running up toward him from behind.

Little Carl ran as fast as he could to catch up to Harry and the two fell into step. Harry looked down at Carl and couldn’t imagine how the boy was handling everything. He seemed fine, but Harry knew that appearances can be misleading to how someone was feeling inside. He couldn't imagine having to grow up in this new world and his worry for the boy grew tenfold.

“Are you going to check up on my dad?” Carl looked up at Harry.

His small legs worked fast to keep up with Harry’s slightly faster pace. Harry glanced down at the small boy again and smiled kindly with a nod.

“I’m certain Shane knew what he was doing when he took your father out of the car and redid his bandages. I just need to make sure he’s all right.” Harry explained.

Carl nodded in understanding and ran ahead of Harry to hold the tent flap open for him. Harry ducked and his eyes immediately locked onto Rick’s unconscious body.

The steady rise and fall of his chest made something inside Harry relax just a bit. He stepped closer to the cot the comatosed cop was resting on and pulled back the covers to reveal the man’s bandages. The white gauze was wrapped tightly around the entirety of his upper abdomen.

Harry gently peeled back the large gauze pad and saw that the stitches were freshly clean and that the man was no longer slightly bleeding as Shane said he was. Harry was glad for that. It meant the stitches hadn’t torn open and the process of moving the man from the car to the tent had just jarred the stitches.

“Dad started to bleed a bit after Shane took him out of the car and into the tent. Mom was mad and wanted to help Dad, but Shane forced her out of the tent.” Carl piped up as Harry slipped his fingers from under the gauze pad and brushed Rick’s hair from his sweaty face.

“I’m glad he did.” _I don’t know much about Lori, but I doubt she knew how to redress a wound_ , he thought silently as he fixed the cover back over Rick. It was a light, summer blanket, so Harry wasn’t too worried about the man overheating under them.

The magic keeping him under stasis was definitely gone now that he was close enough to feel the magical connection between them gone, but Rick seemed to be faring well despite his body finally reacting to the humid heat of Georgia. Harry wished for nothing more than to move Rick to his tent, but he knew that Lori was not going to allow that to happen, at least tonight. Not when they have made it to a possible safe location, and definitely not after witnessing what she had back at the highway.

He decided to talk with Lori about it tomorrow, after everyone had a good night of rest and familiarized themselves with their surroundings. He needed Rick to be right beside him until his magical reserves had restored themselves enough for him to reapply the stasis charm on Rick; and given how long it’s been taking his magical reserves to fill up to where they had been before the highway incident after leaving his homeland, it was going to be days or weeks before it got to the point he could keep a charm like that going for long periods of time.

“Come on, let’s go back and join the others around the fire.” Harry placed his hand on Carl’s shoulder and led them back to where the others sat.

Now that Harry was looking, he could see that while Lori was laughing and talking to everyone else, she was snubbing Shane and giving him the cold shoulder despite her sitting right next to him.

He could only hope the two made up by morning. He needed everyone to focus on getting this place secured. He sat down next to Shane and took a proper look around in the dark and saw that the tents were snug against the trees. He took a peek at Shane and smiled. He was sure the placement of the tents were his doing. That was one less thing Harry had to worry about.

He scraped the beans from the bottom of his bowl and sat it down only to have Amy refill his bowl with another serving of beans.

“Oh no, that’s all right. I’m sure someone else…” Harry started but was stopped when the bowl was gently shoved into his hands by a larger set of hands.

“You of all people need to eat. We won’t survive this without our brilliant doctor.” Shane bumped shoulders with Harry.

Harry blushed in pleasure at the compliment. It never failed to fill him with happiness to hear he was doing well in his profession, the career he worked so hard on. He wasn’t book-smart like Hermione, the studying in college had nearly did him, but he pushed and kept going and here he was now with years of experience under his belt.

Harry smiled down at his bowl and ate his second serving without another complaint. Satisfied, Shane accepted Amy’s second offering and turned back to the tale Dale was expertly recalling.

The man reminded him of someone who was old, but not too old to stop doing the things he loved. From the fishing boat that was tied to the top of that RV, Shane guessed that the man fished often and knew he was planning to do so during their stay here.

Shane finished his bowl and leaned back on his hands as he watched the others laugh and enjoy themselves. Harry’s shoulder brushed against his every time the man threw his head back to laugh and Shane’s arm twitched as he refrained from pulling the doctor closer to him.

He was not lying when he said they wouldn’t survive without him. He hoped deep within his heart, with every fibre of his body, that rescue came soon before anyone...before anyone died at the rotting hands of those undead freaks. Until rescue came, they needed someone who could patch up a wound and keep infections from becoming fatal.

They were going to be toughing it out in the woods. No housing or air conditioners to keep them from overheating and summer was coming at them full force. Everything felt so backwards and everything inside of Shane was telling him to keep the doctor safe. Aside from his medical experience, there was the magical side of Harry that made Shane feel was going to be important to their survival.

Already, the doctor was using his limited use of magic to keep his friend alive and helped a mother and daughter avoid what the monster who dared call himself the man of the family had planned for them.

Shane looked down at Harry and saw that the man looked exhausted, but also determined to stay awake and familiarize himself with the new additions to their group. Seeing Harry’s exhaustion reminded Shane of his own and he nudged Harry with a tired grin when the man looked up at him questioningly before addressing the group.

“It’s getting late. I’m sure everyone would agree to heading in for the night and continuing Andrea’s wonderful tale tomorrow.”

“See! I told you your accounting story was going to put everyone to sleep!” Amy chided her sister teasingly and there were tired chuckles as everyone stood to head off to their tents (or the RV, in Dale’s, Amy’s, and Andrea’s case).

Tension grew when Ed Peletier stood up and made a motion for his wife and daughter to follow him. Harry tensed and glared at the man. He didn’t know where the man had set up his tent, but something in his guts told him that it was quite far away from everyone else's.

“They’re _my_ family, they sleep in  >em>my tent.” Ed growled.

“I think they’d be better off sleeping elsewhere.” Shane growled back.

Lori moved to wrap her arms around the two female Peletiers. Carol was muttering under her breath, her face as pale as her daughter’s. Harry stepped in front of the three and sent the man a warning look.

Shane shot a quick look at Harry and felt his temper rise as the doctor fainting flashed through his mind. He was not going to let the good doctor do what he did at the highway again. The man looked like he was barely on his feet. He didn’t want to find out what would happen to Harry if he tried doing what he did so soon after waking up.

“Go to your tent. Now.” Shane added when the larger man made no move to leave.

“Now listen here…!” Ed started.

“No, you listen here. You will not hurt your family, ever. Not while we are here to stop you. Now go to your tent, alone.” Lori ordered.

Shane was glad that she had finally picked up on what he and Harry noticed from the start. He guessed the incident at the highway had clued her in.

“Listen to the woman, or you won’t like what I will do to you.” Shane warned.

The Harrison sisters and Dale stared between the two forces and shared a look with each other. Dale took a step forward with his hands raised placatingly.

“Just do as they say. Whatever beef is going on between you guys can be solved in the morning.” He said.

Harry doubted something like this could be solved over the course of one morning, but he understood what the man was trying to do. People like Ed loved nothing more than to convince others that there was nothing wrong going on behind closed doors. Dale was offering Ed a chance to do just that.

And what Dale did worked. Ed gave them one last sneer before stomping off toward his tent, and Harry had been right. Ed had set up his family’s tent well away from the others. The trees covered the tent from sight and Harry was certain that the sounds of beatings and whimpers could not be heard from here. Ed had chosen his tent’s location to his liking and Harry’s anger rose further.

Harry did not relax until Ed was well out of sight. He sighed and turned toward Carol who had tears running down her distraught face and her daughter clutched tightly to her chest.

“What did you do? What did you do?” She was whispering on repeat under her breath, her wide eyes staring unseeingly at where Ed had once stood.

“We did what someone should have done for you and your daughter a long time ago.” Harry said gently as he walked toward the two. “We are not going to let him hurt you or your daughter anymore.”

Carol eyes finally focused and she stared wide eyed at Harry. He could see the disbelief, fear, caution, and doubt swimming in her light green eyes; and he perfectly understood what she was going through. He had had countless of people taking notice of the way he acted, dressed, and was treated by the Dursleys growing up under their abusive hands and acted out on their suspicions; and each time they made the abuse worse as they failed to get the Dursleys convicted as the family manage to fool each and every inspector into believing that he was rebelling and fooling people into believing that he was being abused. Some of the people who tried to help him looked at him with disgust, while others were silenced by the lawyers the Dursley hired.

He understood more than anyone what it felt like to get your hopes up, of finally seeing the light afters years of darkness, only to have it ripped away from him and for his world to get darker.

It took the arrival of his Hogwarts letter to finally escape from the Dursleys bit by bit until he was fully free from them, and as bad as this sounded, maybe the End was Carol’s and Sophia’s ticket out. With no one to fool, Ed Peletier was going to find out the hard way that no one here was going to sit by and let him abuse his wife and daughter. Harry will make sure of that, even if by some chance he was the only one fighting for Carol and Sophia, he will not give up until the two were safe and happy.

~ End ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author’s Note:** Took so long, but we’re finally here! I am going to say this now, and I’m sure I’ve said it before, this story is going to be slow. It’s going to be a very long while before we even get to where the show started. I’m planning on writing out each day, or I’ll try to. There might be some time skips.
> 
> And I noticed while writing these four chapters, I don’t like how one day was splitted into four parts. So the next day, Day 16, is going to be written as one chapter. I had to make a timeline to keep track of everything that happened, and it might take longer for me to update again. Good thing to know, I’ve already started on the next chapter!
> 
> I hoped you all enjoyed this chapter! I did only one proofreading (the ending after Harry leaves Rick’s tent was rushly looked over, it’s getting so late and I have to work tomorrow), so there might have been mistakes I missed. I’ll get to them as soon as possible!
> 
> As always, if anyone prefers to read over on FF, I am under the same username: _SpiderRealm_. Drop a comment on your way out, I would love to hear what y’all thought of this chapter!
> 
> Until the next chapter, cya!  
> ~ Spider

**Author's Note:**

>  **Author’s Note:** This idea has been running through my head for the longest, so I finally got around to writing it while re-watching the show. I hoped you all enjoyed the first chapter! Sorry for getting this story so late on this site!
> 
>  
> 
> I’m going to tell you all now, updates will be very slow. With work, I’ve barely got any free time and I’ll try to spend that time writing chapters, but there are so many things I also want to do, so the updates will be slow and I see no sense in rushing and pushing out poor quality chapters. So, updates will be slow and I hope you all can understand!
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you all for reading! If you prefer to read over on FF, I’m under the name _SpiderRealm_.
> 
>  
> 
> Until the next chapter, cya!  
> ~ Spider


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